


We Put Your Curse in Reverse

by Nyxelestia



Series: The Kids Are (Not) All Right [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Argent family feels, Big Brothers, Big Sisters, Brother-Sister Relationships, Brothers, F/M, Family Feels, Gay Parents, Gen, Little Brothers, M/M, Minor Allison Argent/Scott McCall, Stilinski Family Feels, The Argent Family
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-13
Updated: 2018-07-31
Packaged: 2018-08-08 11:39:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 24,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7756360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nyxelestia/pseuds/Nyxelestia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles is just trying to help Scott with his new werewolfy problems, and doesn't get why Derek hates him so much - or why Scott is suddenly so awkward whenever he comes over to their house. Allison thinks her family is up to something, but she can't figure out what. Liam <i>knows</i> everyone is up to something, but as long as they keep doing his homework for him, he'll keep his mouth shut. Their fathers, Chris Argent and Sheriff Stilinski, are just trying to keep their kids as safe, healthy, and happy as possible. It's a tough job, but at least the kids' Aunt Kate is in town to help. None of them realize just how much they've got their work cut out for them. Meanwhile, it's just Derek's luck that the new beta practically lives at the Hunters' home, given how often he goes over to see his best friend and girlfriend - who are just about to start their own Hunter training.</p><p>AU where Chris and the Sheriff are badass gay dads to Allison, Stiles, and Liam. Do not mess with the Stilinski-Argent family, because it'll be the last thing you ever do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Stuck in the jet wash

**Author's Note:**

> Nyxie's Standard Shipping Statement: **This is a family-focused fic, not a shipping focused one.** I use those pre-ship tags to indicate strong platonic relationships, but I am honestly undecided on what the endgame pairings for this series will be, or if there will even be any at all. Take those tags with a really big grain of salt.

“I thought Papa said you’re not supposed to listen to the police scanner, anymore?”

Stiles jerked a little and flailed back in his seat as he looked up at the doorway, pulling down the earphones. There, Allison leaned against the doorjamb with her arms crossed and an eyebrow raised.

“How would you even know that?” Stiles demanded. “That was a private conversation!”

“He only closed the doors to the office when he lectured you, it wasn't _that_ private,” Allison said. She pushed herself off to come into his room and flop onto Stiles’ bed. She looked down at her socked feet and said, “And I’m sure Papa wouldn’t want to hear that you’ve been going against his explicit instructions. Again.”

Stiles rolled his eyes at that, but then smiled.

“Guess what the police found…?” he goaded, jerking his thumb over his shoulder at the shoebox hiding the police scanner hooked up to his laptop. Allison raised her eyebrow, demanding an answer, and Stiles grinned. “Half of a dead body…and they’re still looking for the other half.”

Allison’s eyes widened, half horror and half awe. “What? That’s awful!"

“Yes it is,” Stiles agreed. He smiled as he saw the guilty interest creep up in her eyes.

“…whose body?” she finally asked, leaning in and lowering her voice, despite the fact there was no one awake and around to overhear them.

“They don’t know,” Stiles said. “Caucasian female, with some guesses about height and weight.”

“We shouldn’t,” Allison said, worrying at the edge of Stiles’ comforter. “That’s just…that’s so sad. Wouldn’t it be taking advantage of someone’s death?”

And yeah, it was - but underneath the regret of someone’s death, Stiles could hear his curiosity echoing in her own voice.

“We’d be helping,” Stiles said. “Right?” He paused. “Besides, you still haven’t seen Scott, yet, and he’d love to come out for this!”

Here, she looked a little exasperated. “You’re going to have to drag Scott by his ear to come out for this.”

“Yeah, but he’ll thank me for it later,” Stiles dismissed with a grin. He looked over his shoulder, this time at the wall. “Dad and Liam are in bed, right?”

“As of an hour ago,” Allison agreed. “I don’t know if they’re actually _asleep_ though…”

Stiles raised an eyebrow, and a conspiratorial smile started to grow on both their faces.

“If Dad checks in and sees us-sized lumps in the beds, he probably wouldn’t want to risk waking us up,” Allison said. “Not with the first day of school tomorrow.

Stiles snorted. “Like we don’t go to school with less sleep all the time.”

“I told him,” Allison said with mock regret as she clambered off Stiles’ bed. “Not my fault if he didn’t listen. I’ll get the flashlights, you get a map.”

~*~

Stiles regretted going to get Scott within about five minutes of leaving the McCall house. It was one thing to know that Scott had a bit of a crush on Allison.

It was another thing entirely to watch Scott get transfixed by his sister.

Fucking hell, Scott just saw her a month ago, right before Allison’s mom had whisked her away for a winter break in France. But Stiles supposed that had been before the Parisian makeover Icky Vicky had gotten as a Christmas gift. Stiles was still getting used to it, no wonder Scott was losing his mind. But still-

“Really?” Stiles intoned, as soon as Allison had ventured forward enough to be out of earshot if they lowered their voices.

Scott looked at him, confused.

“She’s only been gone a month, you don’t need to be drooling over my sister!” Stiles hissed. “Out of all the girls in this town you could have developed a crush on-”

“At least she’s not my sister’s best friend who pretends I don’t exist every time she comes over?” Scott shot back.

Stiles glared, but then sighed, conceding defeat.

“…d’you think she’d go out with me?” Scott asked, and Stiles hit him upside the head.

Scott punched his arm, and the two were just starting to all-out wrestle with each other on the ground when Allison popped up again.

“Really?” she intoned.

Scott grinned up at her like the overgrown puppy he was at heart. Stiles rolled his eyes, opening his mouth to retort-

Except then they heard a branch snapping just a few trees away, and the unmistakable sound of a footstep.

Allison and Scott’s eyes widened, and the boys stood up, all three of them crouched low and steady. Stiles realized there was a distinct possibility that whoever - or _whatever_ \- killed the girl they were looking for may still be out here.

And that was definitely another footstep. And another.

Crap.

The three of them were just getting ready to run, Stiles gesturing in different directions and trying to convey that they should go back to the house, when a wavering voice called out, “Guys?”

All three of them slumped in relief, and exasperation.

“Liam?” Scott asked, confused.

A moment later, a recalcitrant thirteen-year-old who _was not supposed to be here_ peeked out from behind a tree, and smiled when he saw them.

“Hi, Scott!” he said with a grin, loping forward.

“Liam, what are you doing here?” Allison demanded.

“…looking for a dead body?”

Scott frowned, turning to Stiles and Allison. “You told him?”

“No!” Allison snapped.

“I overheard them,” Liam said, ducking his head and looking up at them through his eyelashes like he did when he was begging Dads for something. “And hid in the back of the Jeep.”

“Weren’t you supposed to be asleep?” Stiles asked, crossing his arms and raising an eyebrow like Pops did all the time.

Liam stuck his tongue out at Stiles. “But I wasn’t,” he retorted. “I wanna help!”

“No,” Stiles said flatly, pointing in the direction of where he and Allison parked. “Go back to the jeep.”

Unfortunately, Liam was Not Impressed by Stiles’ pitiful attempt at authority. “Let me stay.”

“Or what?” Allison challenged.

“Or…or I'll tell Dads you're out here!”

Stiles and Allison looked at each other, trying to decide what to do.

Allison looked tense. Stiles shot her his exasperated face, and she rolled her eyes, tilting her head towards the deep, dark side of the woods.

Stiles considered it. Yeah, it was a bit dangerous, but he also looked between her, himself, and Scott. Three grown-ups - relatively speaking - who could take care of him.

She pointedly tipped her head at Scott, before giving Stiles himself an incredulous look. Stiles just wiggled the flashlight in his hand a bit, because they weren’t completely stupid, blind, or defenseless.

“Fine,” Allison said finally, her and Stiles turning to Liam in unison. “But stay close, all right?”

Liam grinned, bounding forward, and Stiles rolled his eyes when Scott high-fived him. “Thanks!” Liam cried out, and Stiles immediately darted forward to slap a hand over his mouth.

“Rule number one,” Stiles hissed. “Unless you’re yelling for help, keep your voice down.”

“Whatever it was that killed the girl might still be out here,” Allison said sternly. “So use what little common sense you have, okay?”

Liam nodded, dislodging Stiles’ hand with the force of his head-bobbing. “I promise,” he whispered. Stage-whispered, which - okay, he was trying, Stiles could work with that.

Stiles sighed, already figuring this little trip was doomed. But Stilinski-Argents didn’t quit. There was nothing for it but to keep going.

Which worked great right up until Liam got his dumb ass into trouble, Stiles and Allison had to help him out of it, and they had to talk Scott into running away so at least _one_ of them wasn't in trouble.

It wouldn't take long for Stiles to regret that.

~*~

Chris was still rubbing the sleep from his eyes in the living room when he heard the front door opening. With a long-suffering sigh, he tightened the belt on his house robe as he stood up. He faced the main entryway just as three dirt-covered, shame-faced teenagers trooped in.

He wanted to open with something cutting, or something that would drive home the depth of how much trouble they were in. But instead, all he could see was the matching body language. Their jerking shoulders all caught between pulling back and hunching forward. Their heads tilted down as they looked up at Chris. All of them fiddling with whatever they were holding in their hands - Stiles a flashlight, Allison a map, Liam playing with his sleeves…

“You haven’t even been back here a full day, yet!” Chris said, instead, looking at Allison.

Out loud he meant it as an admonishment, a spark of incredulity that they could get into trouble so fast. But Chris was self-aware enough to admit in his own head that a small part of him was glad that a month with only Victoria hasn’t made a dent in Allison’s relationships with the boys.

If it hadn’t been for the fact they’d been sneaking out at night and putting themselves in danger, Chris would almost be tempted to document this for posterity - and for the custody courts.

Unfortunately, they _had_ snuck out at night, broken into the preserve lines, and put themselves in danger in the process.

And here Chris thought Hunting only part-time would put an end to being out of his mind with terror in the middle of the night. Facing down rogue werewolves and other monsters had nothing on the fear of losing his kids.

“Did you have a good time?” Chris asked, voice light and lofty. He tried to copy the tone John used when luring a suspect into a false sense of security. “Out in the woods? In the middle of the night? With a dangerous killer on the loose?” He tried, but he wasn't particularly good at it.

His oldest two children both looked down, shamefaced. Liam tried to smile, saying, “I fell in a hole!”

Allison and Stiles winced in unison, and Chris rubbed at the bridge of his nose again. Teenagers. Ugh.

And to think, Kate was already harping on him to get Allison and Stiles into the family calling.

“You mean the one your father found your brother and sister trying to pull you out of? And in - I repeat - the dark woods in which a dangerous killer is on the loose?”

Chris was almost yelling by the end, and all three winced again as the implications finally started to sink in.

“I would like it known for the record that we did not bring Liam with us,” Stiles said immediately.

“He overheard us planning and stowed away in the car,” Allison chimed in.

“ _He_ is right here!” Liam said indignantly.

“Quiet!” Chris snapped.

Three argumentative jaws shut with matching clicks as they all drew in on themselves again.

“Do any of you have anything reasonable to say for yourselves?” he asked, crossing his arms and glaring at them. “Something besides an excuse?”

All three kids ducked their heads in nearly perfect unison…and all three spoke at once.

“We’re sorry!” Liam blurted out.

“We just wanted to help!” Allison cried out.

“We could’ve found it for the police!” Stiles said.

It took a moment to parse out the three different statements. The three of them glanced at each other nervously before looking back at the ground by Chris’ feet.

Chris sighed, and held out his hand. “Keys.”

Stiles' head shot up. “Dad!” he protested.

“Car keys,” Chris demanded. “Now. Both of you.”

Allison and Stiles looked at each other, then sighed and dug into their pockets for their keyrings. They pulled off their car keys under Chris’ gaze and grudgingly handed them over.

“I’ll drop all three of you off at school, tomorrow,” Chris said. “And pick you up after you’re done for the day, to make sure you come straight back home and don’t watch TV, don’t play video games, and don’t use your computers for anything other than homework.”

“What?” Stiles yelped, as Liam grumbled and Allison pouted.

“You can keep your phones," Chris continued. "But you won’t have time to use them, since you’ll be cleaning out the backyard after you’re done with your homework. Thoroughly.”

The three didn’t even have to look at each other as they whined in unison, “ _Daa-aad!_ ”

It took John and Chris less than a year to get used to the kids all whining _daaaad_ at them. They only did that when trying to present a united front against one of their fathers. It kind of broke his heart every time they pulled that, but Chris knew better than to fall for it. They taught him that lesson the hard way within a month of John and the boys moving into the house.

“No arguments,” he said, and pointed up the stairs. “Go to bed. And don’t think I won’t check in on you.”

Stiles looked ready to keep protesting, but Liam’s sigh of resignation - and Allison’s of defeat - seemed to take the fight out of him.

“Fine,” Stiles grumbled. With another apologetic look from Liam and some disgruntled grumbling from Allison, they all turned and made their way up the stairs. Liam pointedly stomped the whole way up.

Chris scrubbed at his face as he heard them all disappear into their rooms. He ventured back into the kitchen, picked up his phone, and hit the green call button waiting for him.

“How were they?” John answered.

“Not even remotely contrite,” Chris said. “No cars, no fun media, and they’re deep-cleaning the backyard tomorrow.”

John sighed, and Chris frowned. That wasn’t just the sound of exasperation or exhaustion. That was…

He listened to the sounds of John's background. Crunching leaves, snapping deputies, and barking search dogs.

“Is everything okay?” he asked softly.

“…no,” John admitted. “The body, Chris…it looks like something ripped this girl in half. But this can’t have just been an animal attack. I don’t…”

The unique combination of grief and terror in his voice made Chris consider getting dressed and going out into the woods to meet John. Chris could help with the search or at least bring some coffee, a meager comfort in the cold, dark night.

“Why couldn’t it have been an animal attack?”

“The girl was naked,” John said. “No word on if there was a sexual assault involved. But if this was an animal attack, there would have been clothes around. And what kind of animal would attack a person viciously enough to rip them in half and not eat a bite?”

“Maybe it only ate the top half?” Chris tried, despite already knowing how futile it was.

John sighed. “I wish. Chris, the more I look into this case…the more I think this might be something for your sister to handle.”

Something supernatural - and something dangerous. Dangerous enough that John thought Chris would be in danger were he to try and handle this without his Huntress.

“She’s already coming into town for the deer with the Revenge Spiral,” Chris reminded him. “But I’ll let her know.”

“Thanks,” John said, then added, “God, I hope I’m wrong about this.”

“I hope so, too,” Chris said. “Good luck. Do you want me to-”

“No,” John said. “Please, just…make sure our kids are okay.”

Chris smiled sadly at the counter of the kitchen island. “Will do. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Love you.”

“Love you, too.”

The end-call bleep sounded impossibly loud in the kitchen. Instead of just setting down the phone right away, though, he thumbed through his contacts. For a moment, he just stared at the contact picture on his phone.

Still clutching the phone, he meandered over to the office. The dim lamp light felt almost blinding. Chris squinted at the picture on the incident report he and John both have been driving themselves nuts over for months.

God, they only just got Allison back. And if Victoria heard about any of this…

It was in the middle of the night. But as evidenced by the sounds of teenagers using bathrooms upstairs, that tended not to mean much in their family.

With a wary swallow, he hit the green call button, and was unsurprised when the call was answered in three rings.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Kate,” Chris said, staring down at the picture of the dead deer - and the werewolf symbol of revenge carved into its side. “Something came up, tonight, and…I think you might need to come back here a little sooner.”


	2. Bad trip I couldn't get off

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In a world where Allison has grown up in Beacon Hills and Chris Argent mostly stays in town, we get to meet Lydia and Derek, and get to know Scott a little better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tryna get all these updates out before NaNoWriMo, to minimize my distractions. :P
> 
> Derek's little "the Bite is a gift" speech is quote directly from the Teen Wolf pilot ep. :)

~*~

Scott was pretty sure he was sick. Everything was just _so loud_ , and his chest felt funny - which actually kind of sucked, because he was pretty sure he'd lost his inhaler in the woods the night before.

Maybe the animal bite from last night was getting infected.

He took a deep breath after locking his bike in, and stood up. Well, he wasn't light-headed, at least.

Scanning the crowd, he couldn't see Stiles, but he did see Stiles' sister's best friend standing by the curb, watching the incoming cars.

"Hi," he said, sidling up to her. "Don't you usually pick up Allison on your way to school?"

"Don't you usually _get_ picked up by her brother?" Lydia Martin asked.

"He texted me this morning, saying his dad was dropping him off because he's grounded," Scott answered

Lydia pursed her lips. "Same," she said. Then she turned her gaze back to the incoming cars - and then perked up. "But speak of the devil..."

Scott spotted the black SUV, and smiled.

The car pulled up to the curb not too far from where Lydia and Scott stood. It had barely stopped when Stiles was clambering out of the backseat and jogging up to Scott.

"Dude!" Stiles greeted. Lowering his voice, he asked, "You said something _bit_ you last night?"

"Yeah," Scott said, glancing past Stiles to the car. "I'll show you when your dad's gone."

Stiles rolled his eyes, but before he could say anything, Lydia squealed from beside them. Scott flinched - seriously, he wanted to check if he had a fever or something - as she ran up to Allison.

"Oh my god!" Lydia cried out, stopping just short of hugging Allison to look her up and down. "When you said your mom got you a 'make-over'-"

"I _meant_ make-over," Allison said with a laugh. She spread her arms wide and turned around once to let Lydia look her over. "Beauticians in Paris don't mess around."

No kidding.

Even last night, Scott had already seen that she cut her hair. She did something else to it, styled it in some way Scott couldn't pin down. Her face looked a little different, too. Scott's mom did her eyebrows enough that he easily realized Allison had done the same, but beyond that, Scott didn't know.

But he knew it looked good.

Her make-over included make-up and new clothes. Gone was the tomboy Scott had known for years - now she wore an outfit that looked trendy enough to rival Lydia's.

(Though Scott still thought she looked better on the gymnastics floor. And in her hiking gear. And while jogging. And-)

"I have got to see what else you got," Lydia said, clapping her hands together gleefully.

"Well, I'm afraid that's going to have to wait," Mr. Argent called out through the passenger window of the SUV. "Since Stiles and Allison are grounded all week. They'll be too busy deep-cleaning the back yard for her to show you her new clothes."

"I can help," Scott offered, feeling a bit responsible for their current predicament. "I don't work until evening, today, I can-"

"No, thank you, Scott," Mr. Argent said with a suspicious smile. Damnit, he probably knew Scott had been out there, too. "This is a punishment." Tilting his head to Scott, he added, "Since Stiles won't be able to drive you around this week, I can drive you to school in the mornings."

Scott shook his head. "I'm good. I'll take my bike so I can get to work, after."

Mr. Argent nodded with a congenial smile, then looked between him and Lydia. "You'll both be welcome back next week, but this week you'll have to find somewhere else to be after school."

Lydia nodded primly, Scott waved, and Mr. Argent drove off, window still rolling up as he went.

"...you'll just have to text me pictures, then," Lydia told Allison. "Until next week."

"If I even have time for that before next week," Allison mourned.

Scott and Stiles looked at each other, shrugged, and then Stiles gestured for Scott to follow him.

"Bathroom," Stiles said. "So you can show me the bite. What were you bitten by?"

"I'm not sure," Scott said, turning towards the bathroom as soon as they stepped inside the front building. "I think it was like a wolf or something."

"That's not possible," Stiles said with a frown. "There haven't been wolves in California in decades."

"Well, then, I guess it was a really, really big dog," Scott said, pushing the door open to the bathroom of the admin building. It was empty, of course, so he didn't think twice about pulling up his shirt and peeling off the bandage. "Or maybe a small bear, except they don't have bears around...here...either..."

He trailed off when he saw the bite. The brand new, less-than-twelve-hours bite mark.

The one that looked scabbed and healed over, like an old, _old_ scar.

"What the-?" Scott gasped out, wide-eyed.

Stiles immediately reached out and started poking at the wounds, then tried to pick at the scabs. Scott winced, but it was mostly at seeing it in the mirror - because he could barely feel it. Poking this bite mark felt like poking Roxy's, a scar that was over half a decade older.

"That's not..." Stiles stared, just as stunned as Scott. "It's real-"

"I know!" Scott protested.

"But it's not possible," Stiles added. "I _know_ you didn't have that last week."

"I don't..." Scott shook his head, putting the bandage back and dropping the shirt. "I've been feeling weird all morning. I was starting to think that this might've been infected, or maybe something was wrong with whatever bit me."

"You need to get that checked out," Stiles said. He frowned. "But then all our parents will know you were out there, with us."

Scott pursed his lips, as he and Stiles headed back out. Lowering his voice as they were surrounded by people again, he said, "I'll keep an eye on it. But if worst comes to worst, then being grounded is better than being sick. Or dead."

"Well, that does look like a _really_ old bite mark. Maybe you can say it was from something else," Stiles said, turning towards the hallway with the sophomores' lockers. "Make it look like you were bitten earlier than last night."

"It looks like I was bitten a year ago!" Scott said. "And I think I'm going to get a migraine, soon. I feel like my vision is different, my lungs feel funny, and everything is just so loud-"

Stiles pressed a palm to Scott's forehead, then frowned, looking at his hand confusion. "You actually feel _cooler_ than usual. You should go to the nurse's office."

"I will if this gets any worse," Scott admitted, as he approached his locker.

Stiles opened his mouth, then looked past Scott, over his shoulder.

"Be right back," he said. "Allison wants something."

Scott glanced over to see that Allison was gesturing Stiles over. With a nod and a shrug, he turned his attention to his locker as Stiles wandered off. He put most of his textbooks in there, then closed the locker as he fished through his backpack for his notes on the winter break reading. He tried to focus on reviewing his notes even as he heard Allison's voice cut into his thoughts.

"Has Dad been sounding a little short of breath to you?" she asked. She and Stiles must be walking closer.

"Not that I've noticed," Stiles answered. "But you haven't been around for almost a month, so I don't think Dads exercised much. Though they did join me and Liam when we were practicing with our new lacrosse sticks we got for Christmas."

Scott snorted, shutting his locker. As soon as the grounding lifted, Allison was going to run their dads into the ground.

"You'll have to ease up on their diets," she said.

"What?" Stiles cried out. Scott almost scrunched up his reading notes in his hand as he laughed. "I've been easing up for all the holidays-"

"Yeah, but it's always easier to get them working out if I can convince them they haven't been eating well, lately."

"Ugh, fine," Stiles grumbled.

Scott turned around to joke that Stiles could try shortening his grounding by getting their dads junk food-

-only to see that they weren't there.

Well, no, they were - back by Allison's locker, where she was rifling through it, looking for something.

They'd sounded like they were right behind him.

Shaking his head, he chalked it up to his possible infection and the weird acoustics of the hallway, and headed to class.

Was a _lack_ of breathlessness a symptom? Normally, Scott felt at least a little tight in the chest after jogging up the stairs, but today he felt nothing, even after waiting a moment on the second floor. With another shrug to himself, he kept going.

As he walked, he tried not to flinch at all the lockers clanging shut. When did they get so damn loud?

He almost sighed in relief when he got into the classroom. It wasn't muffled much, but at this point, Scott would take what he could get.

As he sat down, he heard Allison and Stiles again. They must be right outside the classroom.

"What are you looking for, anyway?" he heard Stiles ask.

"I can't find my pen," Allison said.

"I'll give you one in class," Stiles offered.

With a mental shrug, Scott reached into his own bag, looking for a pen. Then the bell rang and he froze, eyes shut and desperately forcing himself not to cover his ears or flinch. He felt like it was piercing his ear drums, and he was shocked when he looked up and saw that no one else was bothered by it. Not even Allison and Stiles, who slipped into the room just in time.

They took their seats, Allison by Lydia and Scott, with Stiles right beside him. Without thinking, Scott offered his pen to Allison.

"Thanks," Allison said.

Stiles, who also had a pen out, frowned in confusion. As their teacher started summarizing the semester to come, Stiles tore out a sheet of paper as silently as he could, wrote something on top of it, and folded it. Once Mr. Smith had his back turned to them, he passed it to Scott.

 _What's with the pen?_ the note read.

Scott scribbled, _I heard her say she needed one when you were by the door,_ and slid it back to Stiles.

Stiles read it, and looked...disturbed. He quickly wrote something on it, right on top of his notebook so it looked like he was taking notes. He folded it and passed it to Scott once the teacher was focused on someone on the other side of the classroom.

 _When she told me she needed a pen,_ Stiles' response read. _We were still by the STAIRS._

Scott stared with zero comprehension, because that didn't make sense at all.

The staircase was at the end of the hallway that this room was a part of. There were three more classrooms, dozens of milling students, and over a hundred lockers between Scott's seat and the staircase.

There was no way Scott could've heard them.

Yet somehow, he had.

~*~

"What the _hell_ did we just see?" Lydia demanded.

Now that lacrosse practice was over, the stands were emptying out, but Allison and Lydia remained sitting, waiting for their boys and trying to process what they'd just seen.

'What' being Scott's sudden lacrosse performance.

"...he must've really worked hard over winter break," Allison tried. It rang hollow even to her own ears.

"I swear to god," Lydia said. "If he started taking steroids and gets Jackson to start-"

"He wouldn't do that!" Allison protested.

Lydia gave her a long, unimpressed look out of the corner of her eyes. "You know a crush on your brother's best friend is a cliche, right?"

"What, like the school beauty queen dating the team captain?" Allison challenged.

Rolling her eyes, Lydia stood up, and Allison followed a moment later.

"...besides," Allison muttered, as she and Lydia meandered towards the gym doors. "I'm not sure it's just a 'crush' anymore." When Lydia raised an eyebrow, Allison added, "I...I think he might feel the same way?"

"Why don't you just ask him?"

"Because what if he doesn't?" Allison said. Clutching her bookbag, she added, "You're the one who just said it: he's Stiles' best friend. Imagine how awkward things would get if it turned out I had a crush on him but he didn't have one on me!"

Lydia just snorted. "I can't believe this. All the shit you used to give Stiles about me-"

"That wasn't about his crush on you, that was about him stalking you," Allison defended. Then she undermined her point by adding, "He wasn't even that good at it!"

Blinking incredulously, Lydia drawled, "That might have something to do with the fact we were in sixth grade at the time."

"Look, asking out Scott is a risk," Allison said. "But if I do..."

"Remember to use a condom," Lydia immediately answered.

"Lydia!" Allison protested, laughing.

"I'm just looking out for you," Lydia said far-too-innocently. "Imagine how awkward it would be if your dads had to fight over who got to shoot him for knocking you up?"

"Forget my dads," Allison said. "It's his mom he'll have to be scared of." When Lydia raised an eyebrow, asking for elaboration, Allison explained, "She didn't trust the school to give him a good sex talk, so she gave him one, herself." With a wry smile, she added, "And then us, too, since my dads were too scared to do it, themselves."

Lydia snorted at that mental image.

Outside the locker room, Scott and Stiles were huddled over something. Jackson strode towards Lydia, his face and every muscle of his body tensed in frustration.

"Let's go," he snapped at her, stomping right past her.

Lydia glared pointedly at Scott's back, then went off after Jackson.

Rolling her eyes, Allison went up to Stiles and Scott. "What are you guys looking at?" she asked, peeking over Stiles' shoulder.

It was a map, one detailing the topography of the Beacon Hills Preserve.

"I lost my inhaler last night," Scott said.

"And he found the top half of the body," Stiles added.

Allison's eyes widened as she stepped back to stare at Scott. "You what?!"

Scott leaned in - all three of them did - and lowered his voice. "Last night, when I was running away from all the deputies and stuff. I fell down a ridge or something, and I found the body. But then some wild animal - it was big and vicious, I think it might've been what killed her - chased me away. I realized this morning I couldn't find my inhaler." With a shrug, he added, "I thought it bit me, though there, um... There wasn't a bite-mark this morning. I guess I imagined it."

"He thought it was a wolf," Stiles added, side-eyeing Scott. "Despite the fact there haven't been wolves around here in decades. Or bears, for that matter."

"Maybe it was a giant dog?" Scott tried.

"Oh my god," Allison said, remembering the dark woods. She couldn't even imagine trying to run away from a dog or a wolf through that herself, let alone if she had Scott's asthma. "Are you okay, now? What about your back-up inhaler?"

Scott winced. "Um...that kind of _was_ my back-up inhaler." He rattled the map. "I'm going to go looking for it."

"On your own?" Allison asked, raising her eyebrow. "What if that dog or whatever is still there?"

With a shrug, Scott folded the map as he pointed out, "I can't really wait for you guys to be un-grounded to go looking for it."

Nodding, Allison pleaded, "Just be careful, okay?"

"And remember to look for the body, too," Stiles added, turning on his heel and jerking his head towards the door to the parking lot. "Pops' guys still haven't found it."

"Will do," Scott added, leading the way towards the parking lot. "Are you guys going to be okay tonight?"

Stiles sighed. Allison would accuse him of being dramatic, if she didn't feel the same way.

Keeping them from Greenberg's lacrosse season kick-off party, tonight, was probably at least half the reason for their grounding.

"Yeah, man," Stiles said. He clapped a shoulder on Scott's shoulder. "Go have fun without us, okay?" Here, he smirked. "Maybe you can find someone to make-out with."

Was it just Allison's imagination, or did Scott glance at her? Maybe out of the corner of his eye?

She must have imagined it. But if she hadn't-

"Nah," Scott said, with an easy smile. "I'll probably just say 'hi' to people and stuff, won't stay around for long."

"If you say so, dude," Stiles said, squinting in confusion as they stepped outside.

There, Dad was waiting in his car by the curb.

"I _do_ say so," Scott said. "Are you sure you don't want me to just come over, tonight? I could sneak in."

"They're checking in on us all the time," Stiles said. "Go. Enjoy the party on my behalf, at least, if you won't for yourself."

With a grin, Scott gave Stiles a one-armed hug before heading over to the bike-racks. With twin sighs, Stiles and Allison trudged over to the black SUV and clambered in. She took shotgun while Stiles flopped all over Liam in the backseat.

"How was practice?" Liam asked.

"Great!" Stiles declared. "Practice really paid off - Scott's probably gonna make first line, this season."

Dad smiled, starting the car and easing them out of the parking-lot as Stiles started regaling Dad and Liam with lacrosse practice.

Looking out the window, Allison saw Scott on his bike, just by the main short-cut out of the school. At the exit, he paused, planting a foot on the ground and turning around to look at the car.

Allison waved. With a soft, hesitant smile, Scott waved back.

Turning her gaze and attention back to her family, Allison hid her own smile as she watched Scott bike away in the rear-view mirror.

Asking out Scott would be a risk - but it was starting to look like one she should take.

~*~

Derek knew as soon as the boy came up to the house what had happened.

He just had no clue how to handle it.

"This is private property," he said, making the boy jump half his height in the air and whirl around.

"U-um..." the boy swallowed. "Sorry! I'm looking for my inhaler."

Well, that answered one question, at least. And it saved him the trouble of trying to get the little device he'd found that morning over to the hospital, in case they might be able to track down its owner.

He pulled it out of his pocket and tossed it to the boy, who lit up as soon as he realized what he'd caught.

From the looks of it, the _smell_ of it, this boy had no idea he'd never need that inhaler again.

"Thank you, Mr...?"

"...Hale," Derek answered. "Derek Hale."

"My name is Scott, Scott McCall," the boy said, pocketing the inhaler. "Thank you so much!"

"How did you lose it?" Derek demanded. "Because if you lost it trespassing-"

"I didn't!" Scott immediately protested. Seeming to realize how much of a good mood Derek _wasn't_ in, he added, "I, um, I didn't mean to. You don't have any fences around, and I was out here last night with some friends. If you had signs up or anything, I didn't see them."

Derek pursed his lips.

Last night.

This boy was Bitten _last night_.

He doubted Laura would've Bitten anyone without, at the very least, letting Derek know. And even if she had, she would've talked to the boy, or found him as soon as she could. If Laura had Bitten the boy, he'd already know that the Bite would cure his asthma.

Which means Scott wasn't Bitten by her.

He was Bitten by another alpha.

A new alpha.

 _The_ new alpha.

Damnit.

His scowl must've deepened, because the boy winced and started backing away. "I'll just...go."

Derek wanted to call him back, but what in the hell would he even say?

"Don't lose it again," he said instead, and turned away.

Maybe he didn't have to say anything, right away. He'd never been around for anyone to get the Bite. Peter had talked about what to expect with Paige, before...

Before.

If the boy was Bitten last night, and he wasn't dying _now_ , then he would survive the transformation - which would be complete by tonight.

He wouldn't have to go to the boy or try to convince him of anything. Derek would just have to wait until Scott came to him.

He didn't have to wait long.

The new beta came back to Derek in the middle of the night, shirt damp like he hadn't even dried off after a shower before pulling his clothes on.

"What did you do to me?" the boy demanded as soon as he saw Derek.

Derek rolled his eyes. "Is it really so bad, Scott? That you can see better, hear more clearly, move faster than any human can ever hope?" He couldn't understand why Scott was so pissed. "You've been given something that most people would kill for," he continued. Not just the abilities, but a pack. Though there wasn't much of a pack, right now, but Derek would fix it. "The Bite is a gift."

"I don't want it," Scott said, all but growling in his growing anger.

Derek opened his mouth to answer, then realized he could hear someone approaching in the distance.

Several someones.

Several armed someones.

He heard what sounded like a vibrating string, and something whistling through the air, and only barely managed to yank Scott out of the way.

A crossbow bolt landed in the trunk of the tree, right where Scott's shoulder had been a moment before. Derek hissed at how close that was as he pulled Scott closer to him. Scott yelped as the men came into view.

"They're Hunters," he explained lowly, as Scott craned his head to get a closer look at them. "They've been hunting our kind for centuries."

Scott seemed to calm down as he realized Derek saved him from being attack...right up until he actually saw their attackers.

"No, you're wrong," Scott said, struggling out of Derek's grasp. Derek opened his mouth to explain, when Scott added, "That's just Mr. Argent."

For a brief moment, Derek couldn't help but stare at Scott incredulously. 'Just Mr. Argent'?!

Unfortunately, that moment was all Scott needed to twist out of Derek's grip. Before Derek could pull him back, Scott ran _towards the Hunters_. What the hell was this dumbass kid thinking?

The Hunters saw him and all raised their crossbows at him. Derek ran after him, but Scott was already throwing his hands up in surrender while yelling, "Mr. Argent!"

This kid was going to get himself killed.

Kate's lead Hunter blinked in surprise when he saw Scott, and...lowered the crossbow.

"Scott?" Chris Argent asked. "What are you doing out here?"

"Uh, well, see-"

Before Scott could say anything, the Hunters saw Derek and raised their crossbows at him.

And this time, they didn't lower them.

Derek halted a few paces behind Scott, ready to fight, ready to defend this young, innocent beta from whatever the hell these psychopaths would want to do to him.

"No!" Scott yelled, throwing his arms up again and getting between Derek and the Hunters. What the hell was wrong with this kid? Did he just have no sense of self-preservation whatsoever? "He's not a criminal! Or an animal!"

One of Argent's buddies snorted in derision, but at Argent's glare, he said nothing.

"He helped me find my inhaler," Scott continued.

Argent narrowed his eyes at Derek, then Scott. "And why, exactly, was your inhaler lost out here in the first place?"

"Um-" Scott swallowed, lowering his hands again. "I was hiking earlier and got a little lost and dropped my inhaler, and it's been taking me forever to find it since Stiles is still grounded and-"

"Hiking?" Argent demanded, the one word dripping with disbelief. He lowered his crossbow again, even as Scott nodded vigorously.

"...you know him?" Derek asked, looking warily between Scott and Argent, not even sure who he was asking. He took another step forward, only for the Hunters to do the same.

Argent's jaw clenched. When the Hunter's hand reached into his jacket pocket, Derek flinched and went back several paces, ready to run.

However, all he pulled out were car keys - which he tossed to Scott.

"My car's about two miles that way," Argent said, pointing behind them as he walked forward. "Go wait in it, and I'll take you back home."

Derek stared, wide-eyed - partially at the realization that Argent didn't know Scott was a werewolf, but mostly at the realization that a Hunter just gave a werewolf the keys to his car. His car, and thus his arsenal.

"Thanks, Mr. Argent, but that's really not necessary-"

"Go!" Argent snapped. "And believe me, your mother will be hearing all about this."

Derek didn't know what was going on. But he did know enough to realize the best way to protect the new beta, right now, was to put as much distance between them as possible in Argent's mind, so that the Hunters wouldn't look twice at him.

"You mean the fact he was trespassing on private property?" Derek demanded - of Argent. "Like you're doing now?"

Argent glared. "Scott - go. Now."

Scott swallowed nervously, but obeyed, walking right up to Argent's side - then stopping the man's forward pace with a hand on his arm.

"He really did find my inhaler," Scott murmured, pleading Derek's case to a Hunter. "He's...well, he's kind of an asshole, actually. But he helped me, and he didn't even get mad at me for trespassing."

Argent took a deep, frustrated breath.

"My car," he reiterated, pointing again in its direction. Derek had a numb thought that he didn't even have to describe his car. Argent expected Scott to already know what it was, to be able to spot it despite the vague directions. How the hell did they know each other? How _well_ did they know each other? "We'll talk later, okay?"

The boy nodded. Argent gave him a disturbingly paternal pat on the shoulder as he nudged Scott in the direction of the car - and behind him, as if trying to protect him from Derek. The way Argent said _your mother will be hearing about this_ would've made Derek assume the man was talking about his own wife, if Derek didn't already know the man had a husband - one who was also the town sheriff.

It was the reason the local police couldn't be trusted.

Scott shot one last, nervous look between Derek and Argent, and jogged off in the direction Argent had pointed. Argent tacked his path, all the way towards the little ridge just past their clearing.

As soon as Scott was over the ridge, the man turned back to Derek, crossbow raised.

Derek, the only one with a werewolf's hearing, was also the only one who knew that Scott had stopped just past the ridge. The kid listened in on them with his new lycanthropic hearing.

"You stay away from that boy," Argent demanded, growling low and dangerous like one of the so-called 'monsters' he dedicated his life to murdering. "He's a good kid-"

"And isn't killing good kids usually _your_ prerogative?" Derek snapped. "Or, y'know, cutting them in half?"

Argent...looked surprised, and even lowered his crossbow.

"We didn't kill your sister, Hale," Argent said. "Matter of fact, we're trying to find out who did."

Derek snorted. "Sure you are." He shook his head, and started backing away.

Argent tilted his head. "You don't know who it is, either? Do you?"

"Who, my sister's murderer?" Derek demanded. "Something tells me he's very, very close right now." He shot a nasty grin at Argent.

The man didn't take the bait. "The new alpha."

"What makes you think there even _is_ a new alpha?" Derek asked, despite the fact Scott was living proof of it. "You're human, you don't become the new alpha when you kill off the previous one."

But just to make a point, Derek flashed his eyes, letting them see the bright blue in the dark of the night - and not even remotely close to an alpha's red.

"Your kid has his inhaler back," Derek said. "Keep him off our- off my private property, and we shouldn't have anymore problems with each other."

Amazingly enough, Argent didn't even try to disabuse him of the _your kid_ statement. Instead, he slowly nodded, and gestured the men to move back. Derek heard Scott scrambling at the sound of the men retreating, putting his newfound speed to use to get to Argent's car before anyone realized he was eavesdropping.

"We don't have to be enemies, Hale," Argent called out, just as the Hunters reached the edge of the ridge.

"It's about six years too late for that!" Derek shouted back, and pointedly turned his back on them to go back home.

Just his luck. The alpha that killed Laura didn't just create a new beta - he created one out of a kid connected to the Argents.

Well, at least he wasn't dating a Hunter.

~*~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Halloween! ;)


	3. And maybe I bit off more than I could chew

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scott's pretty freaked out about his midnight run-in with Chris and his "neighborhood watch buddies", but not enough to stop his pursuit of the dead body - or her murderer.

~*~

On Tuesday morning, Scott stood in the front yard, waiting.

He tried not to think about how this time last week, he would've shivered in this temperature. He tried not to think about how he didn't feel cold at all, despite the fact the sun was still rising. And he tried not to think about the fact this was after he'd only worn one shirt, instead of his usual layers.

This morning just felt _wrong_.

Luckily, he didn't have to not-think for long. Within a few minutes, Mr. Argent's SUV was pulling up to the McCall house.

(Scott tried not to think about how he could hear the sound of the door unlocking from a block away.)

"Morning, Scott," Mr. Argent greeted Scott as he slipped into the front seat.

"Morning, Mr. Argent," Scott said, trying to close the door as quietly as possible.

Despite Scott's best efforts, a dozing Stiles - and Allison, and Liam - woke up in the back seat.

"M'rning," Stiles slurred out. Allison smiled at Scott, and Liam blinked at him, before slumping against the window and drifting off again.

"Hey, guys," Scott said. As Mr. Argent pulled away from the house, Scott turned in his seat to look at them. "Sorry for making you wake up so early to come get me."

"It's no problem," Mr. Argent said. He glanced down at the radio and added, "In fact, I think we have enough time to be able to get some coffee before heading to school."

And they did. The Starbucks halfway between the neighborhood and the school had a drive-thru, and they reached it just before the morning rush. Stiles and Liam just got hot chocolates, while Allison and Scott got actual mochas. Mr. Argent just got some plain coffee, and then paid for Scott's drink before he could even look for his wallet.

He wouldn't even let Scott pay him back for the coffee, after dropping them off at school.

"My treat," he said.

Stiles was still snickering when his dad pulled away. "You need to milk his guilt for all he's worth," Stiles said with a laugh. Allison swatted at Stiles' shoulder in exasperation, before jogging off to find Lydia.

Scott glanced at the SUV in the parking lot entrance. Mr. Argent looked the same as he always did, narrowing his eyes and grumbling at the other drivers.

He looked nothing like last night, when he'd been stalking the woods and shooting at Derek.

"I already am," Scott said, holding up his mocha.

Stiles narrowed his eyes at the drink. "Dude, does caffeine even work on you, anymore?"

Scott shrugged. With a yawn, he said, "I hope it does." Taking a deep breath, he asked, "Did you find anything?"

"A lot," Stiles deadpanned. "But I don't know how much of it will be useful." With a snort, he added, "I forgot how much of a mythology nut Dad is, though."

Scott winced. Stiles caught it, and raised an eyebrow.

"Just, uh, remembering our failed D&D adventures," he lied. Swallowing, he said, "What did they say?"

"You don't remember?" Stiles asked with a smirk. "You're the one who got bored with the game and just kept reading all of Dad's weird mythology books, instead."

Blanching a little, Scott muttered, "That was years ago."

The summer between their first and second years in middle school, to be exact. They'd gone through Mr. Argent's library to look for inspiration for their attempts at D&D - which Scott lost interest in, in favor of reading all of Mr. Argent's cool books, instead. That summer was at least two-thirds of the reason Scott was always able to take advanced English classes. Mr. Argent had used his gun-business inventory system to set up a little library program to keep track of the books Scott borrowed. He'd been joking about how glad he was that _someone_ took an interest in ancient mythology while mock-glaring at his own kids. He'd even been the one to give Scott a fancy classics collection for his 14th birthday. They lived on the bookshelf in the living room, Scott was so proud of them.

The entire ride home from the incident in the woods, Scott had been thinking of those books. Even when Mr. Argent dropped off Scott, even when he told Mom about how Scott had probably been with his own kids the night of the murder, and even when Mom had been yelling at him for sneaking out and losing his inhaler again...

Even when he was listening to Mr. Argent and Derek threatening each other, all Scott could think was, _how many of those books were true?_

"Yeah, those," Stiles said blithely. He either didn't notice Scott's maudlin moment, or was ignoring it. "I tried looking through those, but they kept contradicting each other and were just super morbid."

Scott slowly nodded. "I, uh..." He swallowed. "I never realized how well armed your dad and his Neighborhood Watch buddies are."

Stiles snorted. "That's because they're not _just_ his Neighborhood Watch buddies," he said with a smirk. At Scott's confused look, he added, "You know how many deer and mountain lions and wild animals run around those woods? And how strict the hunting limits are around here?"

"Well, I know the answer to the first question," Scott began.

Stiles nodded. "Well, I know my dad and his buddies like to hunt a lot, so they travel around a lot - I think they're abusing a lot of loopholes." With a lopsided smile, he added, "Or straight up hunting illegally - and they're just smart enough to do it in ways and places where no one notices."

Or they were travelling around to hunt down and kill werewolves.

Is that what Mr. Argent's Neighborhood Watch was really about? Not watching out for criminals, but for werewolves?

For people like Scott?

"You okay, dude?" Stiles asked.

Not at all.

"I'm fine," Scott lied.

~*~

Watching Scott almost shift on the lacrosse field made Derek want to shift and hunt down the stupid kid, himself.

But unlike Scott, he damn well knew better.

The kid was apparently an amnesiac, too. After practice, he climbed back into Argent's car like the run-in last night never even happened.

What the hell was wrong with this kid?

And if Derek thought he'd catch a break by catching Scott, he was soon mistaken. Argent not only _didn't_ drop Scott off at home, he _did_ drop him off at the vet's office owned by the Druid.

The Druid who Scott worked for.

Could this get any worse?

For hours, Derek lurked around the block, careful not to get too close to Deaton's. But he got close enough to listen in on Scott's break-time conversation with his mom over the phone. Derek left when he heard Scott confirm a pick-up time, and didn't come back until five minutes before that.

He tried tracking Scott's mom's car, but lost them soon enough. Making an educated guess based off the mother's scrubs, he went directly to the hospital - just in time to see them pull into the staff parking lot.

It was then that he finally caught a break, even if he hadn't realized it at the time.

The first crack's of Derek's lucky break (or at least a 'less-unlucky-than-before' break) came from Melissa demanding Scott take his bag of lacrosse gear with him when they got out.

"I do not want my car to smell like stale, teenage boy-sweat when my shift is over," she declared in the face of her son's grumbling.

"I could've just biked home," he muttered as they walked through the parking lot.

"That would defeat the point of _grounding you_ ," the nurse drawled as they trotted into the hospital.

Thankfully, the inside was chaotic enough for Derek to stick close to them, and Scott wasn't familiar enough with his new senses to be able to notice.

Given how little control Scott had over himself, this was pretty much the last place Derek wanted to confront him. Somehow, he had to lure Scott out to somewhere safe, somewhere Scott wouldn't be able to hurt anyone or anything.

And it wasn't like Scott could do any _more_ damage to Derek's house.

Derek got his actual break when he heard Scott drop his bag in some kind of staff breakroom, then leave. Derek fidgeted in a seat just outside the room, keeping his gaze on his phone like a worried family member until there were no more heartbeats inside.

As the last nurse walked out, Derek slipped in, finding Scott's bag in the corner. Derek ran his hands all over the bag to make sure Scott caught his scent. Then he grabbed the lacrosse stick and hightailed it out of the hospital.

Derek didn't have to wait long.

Less than an hour after he reached his house, he heard rapid, angry footsteps thundering towards it.

"DEREK!" Scott yelled. "GIVE IT BACK!

"Sure," Derek agreed, stepping out the door, the stick aloft. "If you promise not to play the next game."

Scott's jaw dropped in indignation. "I can't-"

"You can't control yourself," Derek snapped. "Argent nearly shot you just because he thought you _might_ have been the werewolf he was looking for." Derek approached Scott. With a grin as cold and heartless as a wolfsbane bullet, he ripped his claws through the stick's netting, rendering it useless. "What do you think he'll do to you if you shift in a game and hurt someone? Or kill someone?"

Derek didn't wait for an answer. He could tell by the look on Scott's face it wouldn't be anything worth hearing.

Instead, he threw the stick up in the air, higher than the treetops, and just a bit behind Scott.

As soon as the boy turned around to catch it, Derek slid away, around the house and into the woods again. He heard the smack of metal against flesh when Scott caught the stick again. He heard Scott start to walk away, then stop for a moment, breathing deeply. Was he trying to calm his temper?

Well, at least he was out here if that didn't work.

But a moment later, he heard footsteps thundering away. No doubt Scott needed to get back to the hospital before his mom noticed he was gone.

Hopefully, though, someone _would_ catch Scott violating the police curfew Argent's husband just instated. Scott would end up getting banned from the game, anyway.

That would probably the only way the idiot didn't get himself killed.

~*~

Stiles had just finished his English homework when Scott called.

"Hey," he answered. "What's up-"

"Can you sneak out tonight?" Scott blurted out.

Stiles blinked, honestly surprised. Not at the thought of sneaking out while already grounded, but at the fact Scott was the one suggesting it.

"Why?" Stiles asked.

"I think I know where the other half of the body is."

Stiles' eyes bugged wide-open at the wall. "What?!"

"Derek stole my crosse, earlier, and tried to threaten me into not playing the first game on Friday," Scott said. "I had to go out to the Hale house to get it back. I caught a weird smell when I was there, and saw a pile of fresh dirt, like something had just been buried." Here, Scott took a deep breath. "Then after, when I went back to the hospital, I snuck into the morgue."

"Do you mean you _broke_ in-"

"Yes!" Scott snapped. "Look, the point is that the smell at the house was the same as the half-a-body the cops already found."

Stiles sucked in a deep breath.

"...my dads should both be home by two," Stiles said. "So let's meet at the Hale house at three AM?"

"Four," Scott said. "We can be sure _all_ our parents are asleep by then, and we can even get some sleep in, ourselves, before we go."

Stiles nodded, not remembering or caring that Scott wouldn't be able to see it. "See you then."

The phone bleeped as the call ended, and then beeped again with the low-battery alert. Scott's contact picture was still smiling at him from the end-call screen as Stiles plugged his phone into the charger.

He turned around, and flailed right out of his chair when he saw Allison _right fucking there when did she get there-_

She stood with her arms crossed, glaring at him.

"You're sneaking out again?" she demanded.

"What? No!"

She raised an eyebrow, unimpressed.

"...Scott thinks he saw a pile of fresh dirt when he was at the Hale house, getting his inhaler," Stiles finally lied.

Now it was Allison's eyes widening as the implication sunk in, arms dropping to her side. "The other half of the body?" she whispered.

Stiles slowly nodded.

"...I'm coming with you," she declared.

"No way-"

"I come with you, or I tell Dad," she said, re-crossing her arms. "Take your pick."

Stiles scowled as he made a mental note to remember to close his door, next time.

"Fine," he grumbled. "But you're helping us dig!"

Allison grinned. "Sure!" she said, looking far too pleased at the prospect of sneaking out into the dangerous woods in the middle of the night to dig up a dead body.

At least Stiles got a small laugh out of Scott's nonplussed expression when Allison climbed out of the jeep after Stiles, six hours later.

"She overheard us!" Scott defended as Scott started to open his mouth. "I had to tell her about that pile of fresh dirt you said you saw when you were getting your inhaler back!"

Scott's jaw snapped shut, and he nodded in acquiescence - both at Allison's presence, and at Stiles' cover story.

Jerking his head towards the Hale House, Scott lifted up his shovel. "This way."

Despite some of Stiles' private doubts, it turned out there was a pile of fresh dirt just on the other side of the house.

Unfortunately, for all of Stiles' griping at Allison, they only had two shovels.

"So we'll trade off," Scott said, neither of the other two arguing. Scott started digging with his shovel, and after a moment, Stiles followed suit.

Allison stood awkwardly beside them, the flashlight shaking due to her shivering.

However, they were less than a foot down when Allison suddenly walked away, taking the light with her.

"Hey!" Stiles protested, as Scott blinked after her, like his eyes weren't readjusting well. "You're not quitting already, are you?"

Allison ignored him, crouching down by what looked like-

"A flower? Really?" Stiles demanded. " _Now?_ "

He would've kept going, except Allison grasped flower and pulled it up - and pulled up something with it.

Scott and Stiles fell silent as Allison kept pulling what turned out to be a rope.

A long rope.

A long rope, shallowly buried in a spiral.

A long rope, shallowly buried in a spiral that centered around the hole Stiles and Scott were currently standing knee-deep in.

The rope ultimately descended into the hole, into the ground beneath Scott and Stiles' feet. Allison tried to pull it even more, but it was buried too deep for her to pull it out.

For a moment, they all just looked between each other and the ground, stunned into confused silence.

"...keep digging," Allison finally ordered.

They did.

They dug down another foot before they switched, Allison taking over for Scott, who took over for Stiles after a while, who then took over for Allison again just as the horizon started to brighten into gray.

Scott and Stiles were the ones who found it.

Found _her_.

With shaking hands, Allison was the one who pulled out her phone and made the call.

~*~

John had something of a routine, when he came home from the night shift. Peel off his uniform, take a quick shower, and crawl into bed, flopping all over Chris. Then sleep like the dead until he was woken up by three teenagers fighting over a bathroom. He'd wake briefly for whatever breakfast Chris and Stiles cooked, then go back to sleep until noon.

The only thing that would wake him up before then was the work emergency ringtone currently blaring at him right now.

"Yes?" John answered, scrubbing at his face as Chris blinked awake beside him.

"Sheriff," Tara greeted. "I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but your kids snuck out again."

It said something about their children that all John could muster up at that was a deep, pained groan. At Chris' raised eyebrow, John put the phone on speaker and grumbled, "What did our kids do, now?"

"...they found the other half of the dead body," Tara answered.

That got Chris and John bolting upright.

"What?!" Chris shouted.

If Tara was surprised at hearing an additional voice in the conversation, her voice betrayed nothing.

"We just got a call from Allison," Tara reported. "She, Stiles, and Stiles' friend are up at the Hale house. They just dug up half a Caucasian female body - which they believe was buried by man a named Derek Hale."

John and Chris looked from the phone to each other, the implications not lost on either of them.

"I've already dispatched two units," Tara continued, pre-emptively soothing. "Allison's still on the phone with us, so if you're going to call them yourself, call Stiles."

"Thanks, Tara," John said.

"No problem, Sheriff," she said. "See you soon."

John's phone went dead, and with a forlorn sigh, he swung his feet out of bed.

"You call Stiles," he said, even though Chris was already reaching for his own phone. "I'll go make sure at least one of our kids is where he's supposed to be."

Chris nodded, pressing his phone against his ear. John was halfway down the hall when he heard Chris growling, "What parted of 'grounded' do you not understand?"

John slipped into Liam's room, shutting out the conversation as he approached his youngest.

Thankfully, it was _actually_ his kid under the blanket, not just a pile of pillows shaped like him. Liam looked so peaceful, sprawled under his blanket, John wanted to leave him be and just leave a note.

But he knew better than to actually do that.

"Liam?" John said, shaking the boy awake.

After a few tries, Liam stirred, his eyes squinting open. "Po's?" he asked into his pillow. Liam glanced at his glow-in-the-dark Transformers clock, then back at John, a little more awake and a lot more confused. "Wha's going on?" he asked, pulling down the blanket and turning to face John.

John took a deep breath. "Stiles and Allison went back out into the woods, and found the other half of the body."

"What?!" Now Liam was bolting up from bed. "They went out there without me?!"

John face-palmed.

"They found a dead body," John said, already seeing the futility of the emphasis in the face of Liam's indignation. "I'm going out there to deal with a crime scene, and your dad will probably come with me just to bring them back-"

"I can come-"

"But you won't," John said, using every ounce of his 'sheriff' tone without raising his voice. "They should be back before you even wake up again. But on the off-chance we aren't back by a quarter to seven, call Mason's house to explain the situation and get a ride to school, okay?"

Scowling at being left behind, Liam nodded nonetheless.

John rubbed the top of Liam's head, before gently pushing until Liam was lying down again. He pulled the blanket up over Liam's shoulders, tucking him in. Then he leaned down and kissed his forehead, smiling at the teenager's indignant squirming.

He went back to his room to see Chris aggressively dressing, and yanked on his own uniform. They drove out to the scene in silence, stopping for neither coffee nor conversation.

The sun was starting to peek over the horizon when they pull up to the Hale house.

John got to the actual crime scene first, giving all three teenagers a brief hug before turning his attention to his officers.

He had just enough time to be sure the kids had given a statement, and check that someone was already out looking for Hale, when he heard Chris stomping up to them, glaring at the kids and yelling, "What the hell were you thinking?!"

All three kids opened their mouths - even Scott, which was rare - but Chris immediately waved them off, snapping, "No! Just get in the car before I finally give into temptation and put bars on all your windows."

Stiles pointed to Scott and pointed out, "He doesn't live with us."

Chris pointed to the car he and John had just driven here in. "I'm sure Melissa will see the need for them as soon as she hears about this."

The kids looked at each other, and started trooping to the SUV, with only a pause from Stiles to hand John the jeep's keys. John would have to figure out how he'd stolen them out of the safe, later.

He could still hear Chris yelling as the car started up. Shaking his head, John turned around as the car pulled away, trudging up to the hole the kids had dug and peering in.

Then freezing as he recognized the face staring back up at him.

"Sir?" Haighs asked. "You okay?"

Turning his head away and taking a deep breath, John slowly nodded.

"I really, really hope I'm wrong," John said. "But I think I know who this is."

God, John hoped he was wrong. He prayed he was wrong.

Unfortunately, six years was not enough time to forget two shuddering, shell-shocked kids breaking down crying in his station. John had been the one to tell them that the fire-fighters hadn't been able to find any survivors other than their comatose uncle. He'd had to tell them that the entire rest of their family was dead.

A family which John now knew was more than just a family.

"This is Laura Hale," John said, looking at all the officers assembled. "Older sister to Derek Hale - who we are trying to apprehend right now for burying her..." John looked back down into the hole, into the giant canvas partially wrapped around her remains, and at the pile of rope off to the side, wrapped up in wolfsbane. "And - from the looks of it - for murdering her."

~*~


	4. And overhead of the aqua blue

~*~

Most of the time, Allison loved her brothers.

This, however, was not one of those times, because it was _their_ fault she was getting dragged to the stupid game in the first place.

"I don't even _like_ lacrosse!" she protested, as she, Liam, and Dads climbed the bleachers. Liam stared at her like he'd never seen her in his life.

"You should've thought of that before you made yourself untrustworthy to stay at home by yourself," Dad chided.

Papa snorted, but didn't disagree, and Allison continued to grumble. Liam rolled his eyes, clenching his cardboard sign with _Go 24!_ on it, despite how unlikely it was that Stiles would even play. This whole thing was mostly so Stiles and Liam could _watch_ the game.

"Can I at least go sit with Lydia?" Allison pleaded, pointing down to the front where Lydia sat, holding her big, glittery sign for Jackson.

"No," Dads both deadpanned, finding a good spot and sitting down.

With a frustrated sigh, Allison sat down. But she also pulled out her phone, and as soon as Lydia glanced back, Allison waved it at her.

_My dads won't let me go sit with you,_ she texted.

_>. < _ Lydia texted back.

The marching band started up, and the players started coming onto the field. After the away team, the Cyclones paraded out, waving their crosses in the air as the crowd chanted and cheered.

Stiles waved at them, and Liam practically screamed as he jumped up, waving his little sign at Stiles. Allison rolled her eyes, but noticed the figure in the helmet behind Stiles.

She waved at Scott, and he waved back. Then he turned to get ready for his first game on First Line, and Allison settled in for a few hours of boredom.

Or at least, what was supposed to be a few hours of boredom.

Because the Cyclones spent the game giving a whole new definition to the meaning of "curbstomp".

Or rather, one Cyclone in particular.

"I had no idea Scott could play like this," Allison admitted, halfway through the game.

She didn't even know Scott was capable of aggression _at all_ , let alone of slamming his way through the other team like this.

Liam grinned at her. "We practiced a lot while you were gone!" he declared.

Scott moved like quicksand around the away team, ducking and side-stepping with an ease that even Allison envied - and her shoulders were still sore from today's gymnastics practice. The further the game went, the wider and wider berth he got from the other team, and at one point, they even-

"Did..." Papa blinked in surprise, while Dad squinted at the field. "Did they just deliberately pass the ball to our team?"

Even Liam seemed stumped by that one.

Still, they won the game 6-2, and Allison jumped out of her seat to cheer in victory, along with the rest of her school. Stiles had leapt up onto the bench to cheer, despite the fact he never even got to play, and Scott-

Scott was running away.

At first, it didn't look like anyone noticed. Papa was digging his phone out of his pocket, screen bright as it vibrated in his hand before he answered what must've been a work call. Dad was keeping a wary eye on Liam, who was also jumping up and down on the bleacher in second-hand pride. All around them, the crowd was pouring out of the bleachers and onto the field for the traditional victory huddles. Everyone was gathering on the center of the field, where the Cyclones were slamming chests together in between going through the motions of congratulating the away team on a good game.

The whole team, except Scott.

Everyone pouring out presented an opportunity.

"I'm going to go to the bathroom!" Allison said to Dad, shouting to be heard over the celebrating crowd. "Before the post-game rush creates a line!"

Dad nodded in distraction, his attention caught between Liam - who was now also hopping down the bleachers towards the field - and Papa, whose frown only deepened as he got up and went in the opposite direction from the crowds, yelling into the phone for someone to _hold on a second_.

Allison left them to it, taking the stairs down to the grass, then circumventing the crowd to jog over to the school buildings. She couldn't see Scott, but she retraced the steps she usually took between the field and the locker-rooms. At the last second, she reminded herself to turn towards the boys' instead of the girls'.

She paused in front of it, because it was the _boys'_ locker room. But she only paused, before taking a bracing breath and pushing her way inside.

The smell of stale sweat, shower water, and overused body spray almost bowled her over. But she turned the corner around the privacy divider and kept going. She blinked in surprise when she heard a shower running.

"Scott?" she called out.

Ragged breathing and something bordering on a wimper was her only answer. She followed the sound towards the showers, which were placed oppositely from where they were in the girls' locker room.

Inside, Scott was under one of the showers - still fully dressed in his uniform.

"Are you okay?" she asked. She started to rush forward, only for Scott to jerk away - to _flinch_ away. "...Scott?" she asked again.

"It's..." A deep breath, another, then- "Nothing."

Scott's hands were clenched into fists against the tile.

"This is not nothing," she said, frowning.

Scott tilted his head, like he was looking in her direction - though he wasn't quite looking at her.

"J-j-just an...attack..."

"Of course," Allison said, realization dawning. "The way you were playing, no wonder..." She shook her head. "Where's your inhaler?"

"...I don't know," Scott admitted, words nearly drowned out by the water.

Her jaw dropped, but before she could berate him for it, he added, "I don't need it!"

"Well apparently, you do!"

Scott took a deep breath, and another - and another, trying to make a point.

"I'm under control," he said, sounding like he was talking to himself as much as he was talking to her. "I've got it under control."

Swallowing, Allison scrutinized the heaving of his back, the movement of his chest. She had to concede his point - his breaths were already evening out.

"Okay," she said. Leaning against the half-wall divider, she added, "You were great, out there."

Scott tilted his head, finally looking her in the eye. His eyes shone and he smiled softly at the compliment, not even squinting under the barrage of water. "Thanks."

He looked almost hopeful.

Allison _felt_ hopeful.

"Were you...showing off?" she asked, trying (and failing) not to notice the way his wet jersey was sticking to his chest.

Scott shrugged, turning off the shower. "Maybe?"

Taking a step forward, Allison took a deep breath, and then took a risk:

"Were you showing off...for me?"

Scott turned towards her, slowly looking her up and down, with his lip between his teeth and confidence growing in his eyes.

"...maybe?" he said, voice low like he was sharing a secret.

Allison stepped forward again, keeping her steps flat and even on the wet tile. She pulled her hands out of her pockets to reach up to him, running her fingers through his wet hair. She wasn't supposed to get her new designer coat wet, but she didn't care. Scott froze like a nervous puppy, but when she pulled him closer to her, he moved.

When she pressed her lips to his, he shut his eyes and melted.

She could see why Lydia was so obsessed with this. Scott wrapped a hesitant hand around her hip, pulling her even closer to him as his lips parted, and Allison grinned against them.

"I'm glad," she said, not even sure what in particular she was glad for. Did it matter?

"So am I," Scott said, his other hand coming up and draping over her neck as he kissed her again. Mouths open and bodies pressed together, it was like a whole new world for Allison-

Which Scott suddenly pulled away from. His chest was heaving as he pressed his forehead against hers.

"Scott?" she asked.

Scott screwed his eyes shut.

"I really don't think Stiles would be happy with this," he said.

Allison clenched her jaw.

"Well luckily for us," she said, reaching up to cradle his face with both of her hands. "This isn't any of Stiles' business."

"He-"

"-won't get hurt by what he doesn't know," Allison murmured.

Scott opened his eyes, and they were so sad, Allison had to lean in and press a quick kiss on his nose. He smiled, but it faded away.

"You want us to keep this a secret from Stiles?" he asked, clearly unsure.

"I think Stiles needs to learn he isn't the boss of me or you," she said.

"...the team is going to be here any second," Scott said.

"Then I'll get out of here, and see you later," Allison said. At Scott's unsure look, she gave him another kiss. Like hell she would let her brother get in the way of this. "This will be just for us."

Scott still looked unsure, but he nodded. With one final, encouraging peck on the cheek, Allison fled, slipping out of the locker room side-door and down the small hallway. She quickly ducked into a girl's bathroom to dry her coat as much as possible, then headed out and circled around the building corner towards the crowds pouring out of the lacrosse field.

"Allison!" Dad shouted, waving his arm to get her attention.

She jogged over, and for show, she asked, "Where are Scott and Stiles?"

"Scott ran off just after the game, didn't you see?" Liam asked. Behind him, Pops was on the phone, 

Allison shook her head. "I was kinda focused on getting to the bathroom as soon as possible." With a shrug, she added, "I'd been holding it in for half the game."

"Well, the rest of the team are going to get cleaned up and come back out," Dad said, as Pops frowned at whatever he was being told.

"Getting ready for the after-party?" Allison tried.

"Even if they are, Stiles and Scott still aren't going," Dad reprimanded. "Stiles is still grounded, and Melissa already asked us to drop Scott off at home, after the game."

"Dad!" Allison protested on their behalf.

"No buts!" Dad said. His voice softened. "You're still grounded, so you're still not going to the party."

Allison sighed, but nodded.

As Pops finished his phone call, and started looking through the crowd for Stiles, Allison pulled out her phone and immediately texted Lydia:

_I JUST KISSED SCOTT!!!_

Allison couldn't see her, and pocketed her phone for a bit. A few minutes later, when Dads' backs were turned again, she pulled it out. _OMG Finally! Details?_

With a grin, Allison put her thumbs to the screen and started typing.

~*~

"Whatever you want, the answer is 'no'," Dad said.

Stiles looked up from where he was pouring milk into the giant macaroni pot. "Hmm?" he asked.

Raising an eyebrow, Dad nodded towards the milk. "I don't know what you plan on angling for, but you're still grounded, so the answer is still 'no'."

"What if I asked if we could drive slower on the way to school in the morning in the interests of traffic safety?" Stiles retorted, finishing measuring out the milk.

Dad snorted, looking back at his pile of cheese. "No."

"Does Pops know what a terrible influence you are?" Stiles asked, setting down the milk jug and looking around for the cap. "You are encouraging unsafe driving habits-"

"-and you grabbed the whole milk without comment," Dad said, cutting him off. "If you weren't trying to bribe us for something, you would've rattled off my entire cholesterol report at me if I so much as _looked_ at something besides the nonfat milk."

"Well, we are celebrating, tonight!" Stiles defended. Which was true. Dad didn't need to know that Stiles was celebrating avoiding Allison's death glares.

"Uh-huh," Dad said.

Dinner started with little fanfare. Stiles could already see the evil, conniving gleam in Allison's eyes at how much cholesterol Dads were ingesting. He wondered what she had planned for them. Probably another hike or something, knowing her. Still, at least it was only the pasta. Pops stuck to his usual water, like he always did before late shifts, while Dad sipped at some light wine, and the rest of them had orange juice.

Stiles and Liam spent the first half of dinner talking about the game, about Scott's amazing performance and how they were so going to make the championships this year, how-

"Papa?"

Allison's worried tone cut him and Liam off right away, right in the middle of their impression of the away team. They looked over at Pops, too.

"What's wrong?" Allison asked.

Pops sighed as everyone looked at him, and Stiles realized that he'd never once commented during their little over-the-plate recap of the game. "Well," he said, his fork drifting lower and lower with his hand. "I guess you three are going to hear about this, soon enough."

"Hear about what?" Stiles asked.

"Does it have to do with the phone call you got at the game?" Liam asked.

Pops narrowed his eyes at him, then at the rest of them. "Why must you three be so observant, all the time?"

"Gee, Pops, I don't know," Stiles said, widening his eyes for effect. "Why would a cop's kids be so observant all the time?"

"It's a mystery," Allison agreed, her eyes even wider than Stiles'.

Dad snorted behind a forkful of pasta, and Pops looked at him like he'd been betrayed. That got Dad laughing outright, and Pops rolled his eyes, before his expression sobered again. He took a sip of his water, then looked between Allison and Stiles. "It's about the body you two dug up."

"Without me," Liam grumbled under his breath. Dad cut him a quick, sharp glare, and Liam winced.

"The phone call was from the county coroner," Pops continued. "They confirmed that the victim was Laura Hale - and that she'd been killed by some kind of animal."

"What kind of animal?" Liam asked

A wolf, Stiles thought. This was practically confirmation that Derek was the one that killed her, wasn't it?

"They don't know, yet," Pops said. "But since it was not human, they let Derek Hale go."

Damnit.

Liam and Allison looked pensive, Pops was still somber, and with a long sigh, Dad picked up his wine glass like he was trying really hard not to drain it all in one go.

"I wonder if it was the animal that attacked Scott," Allison mused with a frown.

Dad's spluttering took them all by surprise. They looked over to see him choking on his wine. Pops thumped him on the back, a look of managed alarm on his face.

"What?" Dad asked, voice still rasping. He set down the glass and cleared his throat, stealing a few sips of water from Pops' glass, then tried again. "What do you mean, the animal that attacked Scott?"

Stiles and Allison looked hesitantly at each other, but Stiles answered. "When Pops found us, Scott had been running away. He said that was when he actually stumbled across the top half of the body - and there was some kind of animal there, too. It tried to attack him, but he got away."

"He said it looked like a really, really big dog, or even a small bear," Allison continued. "Maybe a wolf or something."

Now Pops and Dad both looked alarmed. "But Scott got away?" Pops asked. "He's okay?"

"Well, yeah," Stiles said with a shrug. "There was already a dead body, there."

"Yeah," Pops said, slowly nodding. "That makes sense." Which did nothing to hide the apprehension in his eyes.

"That actually _doesn't_ make any sense," Allison said with a frown.

"What do you mean?" Liam asked. "It makes sense to me. An animal wouldn't waste energy hunting once it already had a kill, right? It already has food."

"Yeah, but-" Allison grimaced. "Apart from the whole 'she'd been cut in half' thing, the body we found was almost completely intact." She looked over at Liam. "So if the animal didn't chase Scott because it already had a dead body to eat - why didn't it eat it?"

Now Liam frowned. "What do you mean, 'cut in half'?"

"Exactly what it sounds like," Stiles said. "It was like someone cut her in half with a sword or something."

Dad flinched. Stiles wondered if anyone else noticed.

"Animals don't do that," Allison said, apparently _not_ having noticed. "They don't divide up kills or something, they just eat however much they can in one go, then move on."

"Derek probably faked it, then," Stiles grumbled.

Allison set her fork down to glare at Stiles with the same disappointed exasperation as Pops. "Stiles!"

"What?" Stiles demanded.

"Just because there's something weird about this case doesn't have to mean Laura was killed by her brother," Allison started.

"The dude finds half his sister's body in the woods and all he does is bury it? Really?"

"Think about if it was you in that situation!" Allison said. "Imagine if Dad and Pops and Liam all died in a fire, here at home, and years later we came back and you found only half of my dead body. How would you feel?"

"...it's still sketchy," Stiles grumbled into his plate.

Liam, meanwhile, snorted.

"You'd do something even _weirder_ than Hale," he declared.

Dad lost his internal battle, draining his entire glass of wine in one go. Pops, meanwhile, glared at Stiles and Allison with the same expression Allison had been copying a moment before.

"Can we not speculate on our hypothetical deaths over dinner?" he demanded.

Allison winced. "Sorry," she mumbled. Then she used her fork to gesture at Stiles. "But he's being a-"

"Do you really want to finish that sentence?" Dad challenged.

"Maybe," Allison said, still pointing at Stiles.

"Even though you were also there to dig up his sister's body?" Pops said.

Allison lowered her fork in chagrin.

For a moment, the table was silent. As Stiles was drinking some of his OJ, though, Allison looked at him and said, "Do you think we should apologize?"

Stiles choked on his juice, and he's pretty sure the only reason Dad didn't choke on his wine is because he'd already drunk it all. Pops stared at Allison like she was exactly as crazy as she sounded, and Liam thumped Stiles on the back.

"What!?" Stiles yelped, throat still burning from the juice going down the wrong tube.

She was not impressed by his spluttering. "We desecrated his sister's grave, in their childhood home," she said.

_Because he killed her,_ Stiles thought a little hysterically. But of course, none of them knew about werewolves, so he couldn't say that.

Pops, however, said, "No."

They all looked at him - even Dad seemed surprised.

"I know you had good intentions, but you still hurt Hale," Pops said. "Leave him alone."

His tone left no room for argument, and when Allison protested anyway, Pops ignored her, silently finishing off his pasta. Allison's protests died down, and Pops finished his dinner and headed off for the night-shift.

Dinner ended with as little fanfare as it started.

~*~

"C'mon, Scott!" Liam shouted, goading Scott with a smirk and another wave of the lacrosse stick he got for Christmas. "You gotta catch up!"

"I am!" Scott shouted back. And he was.

They raced and raced and raced down neighborhood roads and small side-streets, and Scott never once ran out of breath.

(He didn't notice that Liam didn't, either.)

He ran, trying and failing to get a hold of Liam. Liam always seemed to be right in front of him, yet every time Scott reached out with his crosse, he just missed Liam - sometimes by little more than a hair. Every time, Liam laughed at Scott.

They were approaching the middle school. Somewhere along the way, Scott must've dropped his crosse, because now he wasn't reaching out for Liam with it. Now, he was reaching out with claws, and instead of laughing, Liam was screaming.

Scott still chased him.

Liam shouldn't have been able to outrun him, now, but he was. He barely stayed out of Scott's reach. Even when Scott's claws snagged on his hoodie, he kept running, kept running, kept running away from Scott.

Liam ran into the bus lot, the one Scott and Stiles used to play in and get in trouble in. Liam ran and Scott lost him and suddenly he heard the sound of a bus door slamming shut. That sound had underlain the rhythm of Scott's middle school years and its echoes underlay his hunt as he prowled between the buses. Finding the bus Liam was in, his claws clacked right over the designation number printed onto the bus' side. He pulled aside the bus door, stalked his way up the little stairs, and turned his gaze on Liam, who cowered at the end of the aisle.

"N-no, please, no!" Liam shouted, and Scott lunged-

-and fell out of bed, flailing in sweat-soaked sheets and barely able to breathe.

Scott pushed himself upright, arms about as strong as wet noodles as his chest heaved over them. For a moment, he just stared in confusion as Liam's screams seemed to echo around his bedroom.

Then he grabbed his phone and called Stiles.

"Mmmaawha?" Stiles answered with.

"Where's Liam?" Scott demanded.

"'Where's _Liam_ '?" Stiles questioned, still waking up.

"Is he in bed?" Scott continued. "Is he okay?"

"Yeah, why wouldn't he be-"

"Go check."

"But why-"

"Just go check!" Scott cried out. "Please."

"Okay, okay," Stiles grumbled. Scott could hear the very slight creak of the bed and the rustling of the sheets as Stiles moved. "But seriously, what's this about?"

"I-I..." Scott looked down at his hands, which were currently free of claws and blood. "I just - I could've sworn I was down at the school - the middle school - with Liam and I... Stiles, I attacked Liam, I tried to kill him!"

"You woke me up and are making me wander around in the middle of the night because you had a nightmare?" Stiles drawled.

"Yes, fine, I did," Scott muttered, deciding not to comment on Stiles waking him up to drag him out into the woods to look for a dead body. "Please, just - it was so clear. Stiles, it wasn't like a dream, it was like I was there."

Stiles sighed. There was the sound of one door opening, faint footsteps that even Scott's new lycanthropic hearing barely picked up, then another door.

"...he's fine," Stiles whispered. The door shut, and Scott listened to Stiles slip back into his room. "He's asleep, safe and sound."

"Did you-"

"Scott," Stiles said. "You had a nightmare. They suck, I know, but if you keep acting as if they're real..."

Scott winced. "Right. Sorry."

"Don't be," Stiles said. "I know the feeling. Just don't feed it, okay?"

"...okay..."

"See you tomorrow," Stiles said, and before Scott could say anything in return, the call went dead.

Scott left the phone on his nightstand, but didn't get off the floor right away. He could still feel his claws and fangs, still hear the sound of Liam screaming and begging and-

And Liam was fine. He was in bed, at home, and Scott just had a bad nightmare and he was awake now, so everything was okay.

That's what he kept telling himself as he peeled himself up off the floor. That's what he kept telling himself for the next hour he tossed and turned in bed, failing to go back to sleep. And that's what he kept telling himself when he finally gave up, went downstairs, and made coffee for himself and his mom.

He was still drinking some of it in a travel mug when Mr. Argent pulled up to the house. To Scott's surprise, though, Allison was in the front seat, this time. He saw why, a moment later, when he climbed into the back of the SUV.

"Mason, right?" Scott asked of the boy sitting next to Liam in the very back row of seats - the extra add-on seats that Mr. Argent almost never used. That space was normally reserved for whatever weapons he was transporting.

"Yeah, hi," the boy said, waving at Scott as he buckled himself in next to Stiles, who was still half-asleep.

"Did you get grounded for something, too?" Scott asked, gesturing between himself and the other passengers as Mr. Argent pulled away and headed towards the schools.

Mason shook his head. "The district had to rearrange the bus schedules at the last minute, and I would've had to wait an extra half-hour this morning if I took the bus."

Scott's stomach plummeted right through the floor and straight to the asphalt.

"H-how come?" he asked.

Mason shrugged. "I don't know, yet. I'm sure I'll find out."

They all did, twenty minutes later when they pulled up to the middle school - and the giant crime-scene around one of the buses.

The bus was mauled and ripped up like a dog's chew toy. When Scott squinted, he could even see splatters of blood on the windows from all the way across the parking lot.

"Oh my god..." Allison murmured. Beside her, Mr. Argent almost vibrated in his seat as he stared at the wreckage.

Scott could _literally_ hear his teeth grinding from the clenched jaw.

"That's Mr. Myers!" Mason yelped.

Scott followed his gaze and gasped as he recognized his old bus-driver...being loaded into an ambulance, covered in blood and gashes like he'd been mauled by a wolf.

By a _were_ wolf.

Mason and Liam tumbled out of the SUV in a daze. Mr. Argent took a picture of the bus on his phone and sent it off to someone before he pulled away to take them to their own school.

"...I may have been wrong, last night," Stiles muttered into Scott's ear. "Maybe it wasn't just a nightmare." The two of them craned their necks to get one last look at the bus before they turned the corner.

Scott whimpered when he saw the numbers on the side of the bus.

The same numbers from last night.

" _Definitely_ more than just a nightmare."

~*~


	5. Fall to your knees, bring on the rapture.

Scott wasn't quite sure how he made it through the day. He spent half of it hyperventilating and freaking out at the fact he could do so without his lungs burning, and the other half trying to remember his not-a-nightmare from last night.

"Nothing?" Stiles asked at the end of the day, rocking back on his heels as they meandered to the curb outside the school's front entrance.

Shaking his head, Scott said, "I just – I don't remember Mr. Meyers at all."

"Just Liam, who is completely alive and well," Stiles said. "Unfortunately," he muttered.

"Stiles!" Scott yelped, his protest getting carried away with the light breeze.

"What?" Stiles said. He crossed his arms, and Scott hated that he wasn't sure if it was just Stiles being his usual self, or if Stiles was cold like Scott was supposed to be. "It's his fault we have to wait here for my dad to pick us up! We wouldn't have been caught if it weren't for him."

"That doesn't mean you should want him dead," Scott said. "Especially when someone else already is."

Stiles snorted, shaking his head as Mr. Argent pulled up.

Scott's worry must've been obvious on his face, because almost as soon as they pulled away from the curb, Mr. Argent asked, "Why the long face?"

From beside him, Scott could hear Stiles' heartbeat stutter a bit. Scott glanced over out of the corner of his eye, but otherwise kept his gaze towards the front, despite Mr. Argent's own focus being on the road.

"Just feeling kinda...Remembrall-y," Scott said. At Mr. Argent's look of confusion, he clarified, "I know I've forgotten something, but I don't know what."

"Ah," Mr. Argent intoned, his smile soft and sage like it always was when he helped out Scott. How could he possibly spend his free time killing innocent people? "Have you tried retracing your steps?"

"Um..." Scott didn't answer. Mr. Argent chuckled a little.

"Go back through your day, especially if you remember roughly when you noticed whatever it was that you lost. Imagine yourself going through your day, using your things, and putting them away. Check where ever it was that you put it away, and soon you should figure out what you lost or forgot when you don't find it where it's supposed to be."

"Thanks, Mr. Argent," Scott said.

Stiles raised an eyebrow, pulling his phone out of his pocket.

_Will that help?_ He asked.

_I guess I'll find out,_ Scott texted back.

After Mr. Argent dropped him off at home, Scott dumped his bag in his room, grabbed his bike, and pedaled off on the path he used to take every day for over two years.

(He tried not to think about how short his bike ride was. This trip used to take almost forty minutes, and now barely took fourteen. He knew it wasn't because he'd sprung up a few inches since the last time he went this way.)

In the dead of winter, it was already getting dark as he approached the middle school. It took a bit of skulking around due to the last few adults lingering around, but eventually even the janitors and the after-school staff left, one of them locking up the building for good behind them.

That was okay – Scott didn't need to go into the building. He found a nice bush to hide his bike behind, then considered the chain link fence.

With a sigh, he grabbed on and and started climbing, feeling queasy at how easy it was to hop over the spiky top.

With a shaky breath, he turned around and approached the line of busses, then walked past to the spaces sectioned off at the end. The bloodied bus had some tarps draped over it, to make sure the middle school kids didn't see the gore from inside of it. Swallowing, Scott pushed some aside, and used his newfound strength to open the door.

Almost immediately, he was slammed with the rotten-fish scent of old, dried blood – and worse than that, it was like there were two different kinds of blood, and he got the sick feeling he knew why.

He got the sick feeling that he could now smell the difference between human blood and werewolf blood.

"Here goes nothing," he muttered to himself.

He paused, prayed, and stepped inside.

Less than ten minutes later, he burst back out, ran to the parking lot divider island, and puked over the roots of a very sympathetic sapling.

On the bright side, he hadn't killed Mr. Meyers.

Unfortunately, he hadn't been able to stop that... _thing_ from slashing into Mr. Meyers, either.

Dry heaving and shutting his eyes and trying not to think about the smell of the vomit – and the smells of everything _in_ the vomit – he started to understand Mr. Argent's Hunting.

He wasn't killing innocent people. He was killing monsters like that.

Opening his eyes, Scott rocked back on his heels and looked up at the sky – and the fraction of moon he could see floating in it.

He wondered how long it would be before he turned into a monster, too.

It took him a few minutes to stand without needing to heave again, but after a few tries, he managed.

He stumbled back over to the fence and clambered over it – then had to puke again when he landed all wrong and jarred his still weltering gut.

But finally, he found his bike and made his way back home. This time, it took him over half an hour – which was mostly down to him going slow enough to keep his stomach steady.

It only took him half an hour to reach his home...and half a second to decide to keep going past it.

Mr. Meyers had been shocked, last night – but not _surprised_. He knew something, and hopefully he could tell Scott, so Scott could get to the bottom of this.

Clenching his jaw in determination, he put his horrifying new body to good use, and pedaled as fast and hard as he could manage.

It only took him another ten minutes to reach the hospital.

~*~

 

Derek figured he would have to run into at least one problem when he went to speak to the alpha's second victim.

He just didn't expect that problem to be the new beta.

"What are you doing here?" the boy demanded, intercepting Derek outside the hospital. Narrowing his eyes, he asked, "Did _you_ do this to him?"

"No!" Derek snapped, looking the kid up and down. He was so damn young, it was ridiculous. "I'm trying to find out who did."

The kid clenched his jaw so hard, Derek was sure he would've heard it even with a human's hearing, and he definitely heard the slight squeak of rubber from where the boy gripped the handle of his bicycle.

"...that's why I'm here, too," Scott relented, shoulders slumping.

"I was going to go up that way," Derek said, pointing up a wall with a lot of decorative ledges that were easy to climb.

Scott frowned in confusion. "We can just walk in. The police think it was an animal attack, so there's no reason to put guards outside doors for those."

"The police don't, but Hunters do," Derek counters. "They wouldn't be obvious. Probably someone in scrubs so no one pays attention to them, or a regular-looking person sitting in a chair like they're waiting on a family member. And these are only if they don't already have some staff on their payroll, anyway."

Scott frowned, his bicycle tilting dangerously as he looked up the wall. "So you want to climb _that_?" he asked, eyes wide as he took in the distance.

"He's only on the third floor, and it's not that hard," Derek answered.

Scott didn't seem to believe him.

With an eye-roll, Derek waved his hand towards the bike racks that Scott seemed to have been headed towards, and he strolled over to the ideal starting point for the climb up. Scott locked up his bike, and joined Derek.

It was a pretty simple climb, all things considered. There were human free-runners who could do this in their sleep, and Derek was pretty sure this wouldn't even qualify as parkour. Still, Scott was slow and methodical and nervous. Derek wondered how the hell people lived being this anxious about the world around them. About halfway up, Derek stopped trying to coax Scott up the wall, and just clambered up himself as rapidly as he could.

Let Scott see what he could do he if he stopped holding himself back.

The window was hinged at the bottom and only opened at the top, so Derek had to swing himself up a bit to reach the latch, then shimmy down again.

He did not land quietly, and expected the man in the only occupied bed in the ward to jerk awake.

Except it turned out he already was awake.

At least, Derek thought so. His eyes were slit open and his heart beat was already on the thready side. Still, the man looked right at Derek. His eyes went a little wide and he opened his mouth, and Derek prepared for-

"I'm so sorry."

-not that.

He stared, bewildered.

"...sorry about what?" Derek demanded.

The man didn't seem to hear him, and he was crying now. "Your family, I didn't, I just, I'm so sorry, they were already dead, and my kids weren't, I couldn't..."

Derek frowned in confusion as the man trailed off into mumbling too low and incoherent for even werewolf hearing to make out.

It wasn't just his voice getting low, either – so was his heartbeat.

Derek scrambled up the glass of the window as an alarm on the heart monitor started to blare. He shut the window and barely managed to drop below the ledge when he heard the door open and nurses and a doctor rush in.

He nearly dropped right into Scott, who had only just reached the ledge Derek was now dangling from.

"What was he talking about?" Scott asked, watching warily as Derek swung himself down to a handy corner. "What was he sorry for?"

"I don't know," Derek said. He looked up at the window. "I'll wait for them to help him and clear out of the room before asking him again."

Unfortunately, that never happened.

They listened as the medical staff snapped incomprehensible jargon at each other, pulling out all manner of machinery and tools to no avail. Above Derek, Scott's eyes grew wider and wetter as he listened in – then they shut, tears streaming from them, when the doctor finally called the bus driver's time of death.

Derek slammed his fist into the building in frustration – and winced when some concrete crumbled and rained down to the ground.

"Go down," Derek ordered, already making his way ground-ward.

Again, he took the fasted route possible, to try and encourage Scott. Again, Scott didn't seem to notice, still coming down the wall slowly, and actually falling from the second floor.

Derek winced, both at the sound of snapping bone, and at the volume of Scott's shout of pain.

"Quiet!" he snapped, grabbing Scott and hauling him away. Scott whimpered, and with a sigh, Derek wrapped his hand around the boy's neck and started draining the pain as he dragged him away.

He ignored the boy's sound of confusion as he headed towards the bike racks – and the yelp of indignation when Derek broke the bike chain instead of waiting for Scott to unlock it with a broken arm.

"Follow me," he ordered, grabbing the bike and starting to roll it away. "We need to get out of here before the Hunters come out and see us."

Using his good hand to wipe the tears away, Scott nodded and followed along dumbly.

"...I heard him die," Scott murmured in horror, as they power-walked away as fast as a bicycle and a broken arm allowed them. "He – I heard his heart stop!"

"That's usually what death means," Derek called over his shoulder, turning at the first cross section and headed towards where he parked his car.

He shoved the bike into the trunk, the boy into the passenger seat, and himself behind the wheel.

He would've started the car, except the boy murmured, "I think I get Mr. Argent, now."

Derek turned to stare at him in bewilderment. If the boy heard the way Derek's heart seemed to freeze at the name and the statement, he gave no indication of it.

"You what?" Derek demanded.

The boy clenched his jaw, and glared up at Derek.

"The monster that killed Mr. Meyers," he said. "How long before I turn into that? Before _you_ do?"

Jesus Christ, what the hell kind of nonsense has Argent been filling this kid's head with?

"We're predators, Scott, but we're not killers. The person who killed Meyers was a murderer, like human murderers, who happened to have claws and fangs."

Scott didn't seem to believe him, instead cuddling his arm to his chest. "I should go back – I'm going to have to go back, anyway, for my arm-"

"Your arm will be fine in a few minutes," Derek snapped. Scott stared at him incredulously. With another eye-roll, Derek reached over and pressed two fingers against the boy's neck, draining his pain again.

Scott tried to turn, bewildered, and only stopped moving at Derek's perfunctory growl. His breaths deepened and evened out as Derek took the pain.

"What-"

"Call it a perk of being a werewolf," Derek said, pulling his hand away.

He started the car, but nearly stopped it again when Scott said, "It wasn't a person."

Derek frowned.

"I – last night, I had a nightmare about killing a kid on the bus," Scott said. Derek's stomach started to sink – except wait, this kid came here to find the killer, didn't he? Wouldn't that mean it wasn't Scott? "And then this morning, Mr. Meyers was actually hurt, and I couldn't remember it but it was the same bus as my nightmare, so I went back to the bus like Mr. Argent told me to-"

"You told Argent what you are?!" Derek yelled.

Scott flinched from him, curling over his broken arm. "No! I just said I felt like I was forgetting something and he said to retrace my steps!" Looking away from Derek, the kid stared down at his worn-out shoes and added bitterly, "I don't think this is what he meant."

Derek pinched the bridge of his nose. This kid was gonna be the death of him. "And did you remember anything?"

"Yeah," Scott said. "I was...there. But so was this – monster. Like a mix between a bear and a wolf, but with glowing red eyes. It wasn't human, and it was just so angry and it wanted to kill, and it wanted _me_ to kill. But I didn't want to and I tried to fight him off but I couldn't and Mr. Meyers was helpless and-"

The kid stopped, choking up, and Derek frowned in confusion.

"So first my sister, then a bus driver?" Derek said out loud. "That doesn't make any sense."

He saw movement in his peripheral version, and turned to see Scott looking at him again.

"You're sure that this thing killed your sister?"

"It's a werewolf, not a thing," Derek snapped. "And yes, I'm sure – if it's an alpha, it has to be."

Scott frowned. "What's an alpha?"

Derek let out a long sigh, and started to ease out of his parking spot. "I'll explain on the way. Where do you live?"

"821 Williamson Road," Scott said. "About halfway between the elementary school and the movie theater."

Derek nodded, headed in that direction. "There are three types of werewolves, two that you need to know about. Red eyed werewolves are alphas, they're powerful, and they're usually leaders of the pack. Betas are the followers, and our eyes are blue or gold. Laura was my alpha. Normally, when a werewolf dies, the next...I guess you could say 'strongest' beta or most alpha-like beta becomes the new alpha."

"But not always?" Scott said. The stoplight light changed from red to green, but

Derek shook his head. "No. If an alpha is killed by another werewolf, then that werewolf becomes the new alpha, regardless of whether they're in the pack, another pack, or an omega."

"'Omega'?"

"Lone wolf," Derek said. "A wolf without a pack."

"...like me?" the kid asked.

Derek resisted the urge to bash his head against his own steering wheel.

"No," Derek gritted out, as he took a sharp turn. "You were Bitten by the new alpha, right?" He saw Scott nod out of the corner of his eye. "So because of that, you're his or her beta."

Scott whimpered. For a moment, Derek thought he was just overreacting to the idea of being a beta, before he remembered the sharp turn he'd just taken and that the kid's arm was still healing.

For a few moments, they sat in silence as Derek tried to remember the streets of Beacon Hills. Not much has changed in the last six years, but enough has to throw him off a little.

"...that night, in the woods," Scott said. "Why'd you keep talking as if Mr. Argent and the Hunters killed your sister, if you knew-"

"I wasn't sure if there was a new alpha," Derek said. "Besides, it's not the first of my family they've killed."

Scott's head snapped up to him.

"My family died in a fire," Derek explained laconically. "That fire wasn't an accident."

"That can't be," Scott insisted. He actually shook his head, looking a bit like a puppy with the way his hair flopped around. "No way, I don't believe you. Mr. Argent would never do that!"

Derek snorted. "He's not even your dad," he started.

"That's not the point!" Scott cried out. "He hunts animals, but that's _it_! And he's not, like, super gung-ho about that or anything! He's big on ethical hunting, and he's really understanding. Even after I ruined a camping trip because I couldn't stand the thought of killing things, he still helped me. He's the one who got me a job with Dr. Deaton!"

Derek blinked at the stop sign, then laughed darkly as he realized what it meant.

"What?" Scott asked.

"You don't – you haven't -" Derek clenched his teeth to keep his laughter from descending into outright sobbing. "Deaton is a Druid."

"...a what?" Scott asked, bewildered.

Going straight through the intersection, Derek explained, "Druids, they're – they sometimes help packs, sometimes they help Hunters. They know things about the supernatural, can even do things like repel us with mountain ash. Sometimes, they align with packs or other shape-shifters, but other times they align with the Hunters."

"I..." Scott seemed to look down in thought, though he brought up his good hand to point out a turn. "In his office, there are...I thought they were just decorations."

Snorting in derision, Derek took the turn.

"Argent must've been planning on recruiting you for a long time," Derek said. "But when you turned out to be useless for Hunting, he shoved you at Deaton. Hunters can always use another Emissary."

"But I haven't learned anything about Druids," Scott said. "Just – vet tech stuff. Stuff about healing animals, because I'm gonna be a vet, too."

Derek rolled his eyes. "We're shape shifters, Scott – and our other shapes are animals. Deaton's a vet, that's just not all he is, and I'd bet money that Argent wants you to be the same."

Scott swallowed, staring out at the night sky without seeming to really see it. Derek ignored him, counting off the houses and looking for the numbers until he pulled up toward a dilapidated house in a neighborhood that Derek remembered used to be pretty nice when he was little.

He parked across the street, and rolled his eyes when he saw how maudlin Scott was.

"How's your arm?" Derek asked.

Scott looked bewildered at his question, but then actually looked down at his arm. He stretched it out, opening and clenching his hand, before prodding at the part where the break must've been.

"This isn't possible," Scott said, shaking head and looking down at his arm in something akin to...horror?

"It's another perk of being a werewolf," Derek said. He reiterated, "The Bite is a gift-"

"I still don't want it!" Scott snapped. He looked up, and Derek wondered if the kid even realized his eyes were gold. "How do I get rid of it?"

Derek groaned. "Really? A cure for lycanthropy? _That's_ what you want?" He was turning into a stereotype.

"Yes!" Scott snapped. "I didn't ask for this, and I don't want this-"

"Why?" Derek demanded. "You're faster, you're stronger – do you really think you'd be such a star of your lacrosse team if you were still human?" Pointing to the arm, he said, "You'd be spending weeks in a cast and hundreds of dollars on the hospital bill if you were human."

"No, I wouldn't," Scott ground out, clenching the fist on his freshly-healed arm. "Because I wouldn't even be here in the first place if it weren't for some monstrous alpha thing trying to mind-control me into killing people!"

Derek rolled his eye – at this rate they'd get stuck this way – and opened his door and popped the trunk. "Grab your bike and go, Scott. We'll figure this out later."

"Curing me or killing the guy who killed your sister?" Scott grumbled.

Derek facepalmed. Was this kid always going to be so stubborn?

Why were humans so obsessed with _staying_ human? Every other werewolf movie in existence was about trying to undo it-

...Now _there_ was a thought.

"Possibly both," Derek said, looking down his car towards the back, where Scott was pulling his bike out of the back.

Of course he looked hopeful now.

"It's mostly a myth," Derek started.

"But werewolves are myths, anyway," Scott said, as if finishing Derek's sentence.

Derek shrugged a little, trying not to commit too much to his words as Scott set his bike on the road. "But you're not gonna like it. It's a myth that killing the alpha who turned you, can turn you back."

Scott froze, heartbeat stuttering and breath rushing out without going back in.

"K-kill someone?" Scott almost whimpered out. "I have to kill someone to be cured?"

"I'm not sure," Derek said. "But if you help me find that guy, we can work it out."

Scott swallowed, hands shaking.

"He murdered two people," Derek said. "And something tells me he's not going to stop. Someone that powerful? There's no 'jail' for people like us. We behave, or we die, and whoever killed my sister and that bus driver? Definitely not 'behaving'. Whoever it is, they're going to die, no matter what." As soon as Derek got his hands on them, anyway.

Scott looked down at his arm again, then slowly nodded.

"Fine," Scott answered. "I'll help.


	6. Blessed be the boys time can't capture

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to [Faia Sakura](http://faiasakura.tumblr.com/) for betaing this chapter! ♥

When Kate turned onto the quiet, suburban street and saw her brother’s house just up ahead, she smiled. She looked forward to greeting her family, getting a hot shower, and sleeping in a _real_ bed.

She took care in pulling up to the curb, switching off the engine and watching as her brother-in-law pulled into the drive-way. As the garage door puttered open, she grabbed her duffel bag and followed John’s car inside it.

While the garage door closed behind them, John clambered out of his car and and looked over at Kate.

“You sure you’re okay?” hHe asked again. Despite the fact he wasn’t in his uniform (and wasn’t that a shame?), he still looked every inch the police officer as he scanned her for injuries.

Kate rolled her eyes, re-shouldering her bag. “I’m fine,” she repeated, keeping her voice down in case the kids were already downstairs.

“You were _attacked_ ,” John said, locking the car behind him. “Excuse me for being worried.”

“You’re sweet,” she said, as he unlocked the door to the house. “But I’m a professional, remember?”

With an accepting nod, he opened the door, ushering her through before following her inside. They both left their shoes on the little rack by the garage door, and she headed into the living room.

She’d barely dropped her bag onto the couch when she heard Chris coming down the stairs. She turned around just in time to see him step off and move towards the opening archway of the living room.

“Hey,” he said, greeting her with a tight bear hug. “Are you okay? I heard-”

“I’m _fine_ ,” she reiterated. “The alpha and one of the betas tried to pull me out of my car, but that’s it. They didn’t hurt me.” She smirked. “I even managed to shoot the beta.”

Chris’ expression became a little more cynical. “Did anybody _see_ you?”

With another eyeroll, Kate shook her head. “No. But I couldn’t get a good look at the wolves, either. Just got a bit of shape or idea for the beta.”

“Lean and fast,” John piped up. Kate turned to see he actually had that little notepad he carried around with him everywhere, and was reading her description off of it. “Much leaner than the alpha, and a bit young looking.”

“Hale?” Chris asked. “He certainly isn’t the alpha. We saw his eyes. Still blue.” With a sigh, he added, “And still convinced we started the fire.”

Kate raised an eyebrow at Chris’ baleful tone, but knew better than to ask him why he cared so much about the mutt’s opinions of them.

Instead, she reminded him, “Well, his eyes _are_ blue, so someone should’ve put a bullet in him years ago-”

“Kate!” John snapped.

She turned to him, crossing her arms. “You know what we do John — and you know there’s no jail for these things, no court house that can prosecute them. We wouldn’t be doing this if there were.”

The Sheriff sighed, age old frustrations with the family’s purpose coming back to haunt him.

“That doesn’t mean we should just forget about innocence until proven guilty.”

“And we _don’t_ ,” Kate said, reaching over to gently hold onto his hand.

“That’s what we have the Code for,” Chris reminded him.

“But blue eyes are evidence far more secure than any DNA analysis or fingerprint comparison could ever be,” Kate reminded him. Again. This happened every other time she came here, and one day, she would make a recording of this just to spare herself the trouble. But that day was not today, so she added, “There is no legal court in the world that will take that. So we do it for them.”

John squeezed her hand, before letting go and reaching out for Chris. “But we shouldn’t be so casual about killing people.”

“We aren’t,” Chris said. “There’s a reason we haven’t even gone after Hale until now. But all this, with his sister, the bus driver, attacking Kate unprovoked?”

“…I know,” John said. “Doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

“And that’s why I’m here,” Kate said, with the most reassuring smile she could muster. “I’m handling it, so you don’t have to.”

John nodded. “But let’s handle it _tomorrow_ ,” he said. “Tonight, just rest.”

Chris looked her over, then John, then glanced at her bag. Seeing nothing incriminating, he smiled.

“I still haven’t told them you’re coming,” he said, then went back out to the staircase. He took a deep breath, and yelled upstairs in his sternest angry voice, “Liam! Stiles! Allison! _Get down here!_ ”

Kate laughed as she realized what Chris was doing, but quickly smothered the sound as three doors opened upstairs, and three sets of wary footsteps padded down the hall. Kate moved a few steps to the side to ensure they wouldn’t see her.

“What’s going on?” Stiles asked.

Rather than answering, Chris crossed his arms and stepped back from the bottom step, giving them ample room to come downstairs. A set of wary footsteps started descending, followed by two heavier treads.

A moment later, Kate’s niece carefully stood in front of Chris, while her two nephews waited behind Allison on the bottom steps.

“Yeah?” Allison asked.

Still not saying a word, Chris looked past Allison — and only then did he break into a smile.

Allison turned around, her eyes widened, and her expression broke out into a matching grin of her own.

“Kate!” she cried out, practically leaping forward for a hug.

They clutched each other in a tight hug, before Allison shuffled to the side a bit without letting go. Kate held out her freshly freed arm, and a moment later, Liam latched onto her as well.

“Just how much taller have you gotten since last year?” she asked him. He laughed, and she squeezed them, then looked over Liam’s shoulder. “And you! When did you actually get taller than _me_?”

“Like a year ago?” Stiles answered. He came around behind his brother, and Kate reached out her arm to give him a side-hug, before all three kids stepped back. She rubbed the boys’ heads, chuckling at Liam’s indignation when she messed up his hair, and clasped her hands together in front of her.

“So,” she asked, looking between Chris and Stiles. “What’s for dinner?”

~*~

It was a miracle that Derek hadn’t veered off the road completely before he reached Williamson Road, let alone managed to avoid police detection. He actually drove past Scott’s house and had to turn back. It took him way, _way_ too long to park the car.

He made sure to keep his face close to his good shoulder when he jumped over the fence to the yard, so that he could immediately press his mouth to his bicep to muffle the scream of pain.

After several minutes of breathing through the pain, he made his way back. After making sure the mother wasn’t there to see him — despite the rising sun, she was fast asleep in her room — he crawled up the side of the house, and pried open the window.

“Derek?!” Scott cried out, his yelp punctuated by the backpack _thudding_ onto the carpet.

Huh. Looks like Derek _barely_ managed to catch him before leaving for school.

He scowled as he landed in a heap on Scott’s carpet. His expression only deepened as he realized he could smell one of Argent’s kids in here — the older boy, Stiles.

Derek didn’t even bother saying anything at first, just sitting up as Scott opened his mouth indignantly, only for his nostrils to flare as he took in the scent of toxic blood.

The boy zeroed in on Derek’s arm, eyes wide in horror.

“Yeah,” Derek said.

“Oh my god,” Scott said, collapsing to his knees by Derek’s side as the older werewolf leaned back against the wall. Scott’s hands fluttered as tried to peer at the bullet-wound without touching it. “Oh my god, ohmygod ohmygod we’ve gotta, my mom’s a nurse, the hospital, we-”

“ _No!_ ” Derek snapped, glaring at Scott and mentally patting himself on the back for not rolling his eyes at this idiotic kid. “We’re not human, Scott!” he reminded him. “I can’t just go to a hospital-”

“Well you can’t just sit here and die in my room!” Scott snapped back. “I barely know anything about treating bullet-wounds, I still don’t know how _my_ arm healed, and-”

“It’s not…the bullet…” Derek ground out, working his jacket off and pulling up the sleeve to reveal the wound. “It’s the wolfsbane. I’ve got forty-eight hours, max.”

Scott swallowed, eyes tracing the darkened veins from where the poison already sunk in.

“Forty-eight hours until…” Scott swallowed. “Before you die? Are you-”

“It can be healed, but not on its own,” Derek said, starting to peel off his jacket. “I just need one of the bullets I was shot with.”

“Okay,” Scott said. “I can ask the Argents-”

“Are you _insane_?!” Derek hissed. “How the hell are you going to explain to them that you need it? They are the ones who _shot_ me, you think they’re going to turn around and help me?”

“If they knew it was an accident!” Scott protested. “Or a mistake-”

“It wasn’t a mistake,” Derek said. “Kate knows what she’s doing.”

“What if she didn’t know it was you?”

Derek reached out and grabbed onto the front of Scott’s shirt, jerking downward and not caring as Scott fell to his knees in front of him.

“She wouldn’t care even if she did,” Derek said, and reeled Scott in. “Listen to me closely — I will die if I don’t get a wolfsbane bullet by tonight. But we will both die if the Argents find out about us.”

Scott nodded, reaching up to disentangle Derek’s fingers from his shirt.

“…all right,” Scott murmured, lower lip wavering. “I’ll get a wolfsbane bullet. And I won’t tell them.”

Derek nodded, slumping back against the wall under Scott’s window. “I don’t know much of their security system,” he said, and spared a moment at the sheer ridiculousness of trusting _this kid_ with something so important. “But if you can case the house, we can figure out a plan, create a diversion, and then break in.”

“Or I can just steal one when I’m over there for dinner tonight?”

It took a moment for Scott’s words to make sense, but once they did, Derek had to fight to keep his jaw from dropping.

Under Derek’s confounded gaze, Scott shrugged. “My mom has a late shift tonight, so I’m supposed to have dinner with them. And I know where Mr. Argent keeps his passwords.”

Of course. It wasn’t bad enough that the new beta was friends with Hunters, he had _dinner_ with them.

If it weren’t for the bullet wound in his arm, Derek would be burying his face in his palm in exasperation.

“Or that,” he agreed instead. “Can you get a bullet without them noticing?”

Scott rolled his eyes. “Their house is like a Wal-Mart of guns. As long as you don’t die while I’m at school, or get caught by my mom, you’ll be fine. _We’ll_ be fine.”

~*~

Scott was not fine.

The good news was, he got the bullet.

The bad news was, Liam saw him sneaking out of Miss Argent’s room.

The middle-schooler barely came up to Scott’s chin, but the stern gaze in Liam’s eyes made Scott feel like he was half Liam’s size.

“What were you doing in there?”

“Nothing!”

Liam crossed his arms and raised his eyebrow, almost a perfect mirror of Allison’s _I don’t believe you_ posture — save for the clenched fist. That was either all Stiles, or something Stiles picked up from Liam. Scott had no idea.

But he did know that Miss Argent and Mr. Argent and Sheriff Stilinski absolutely, 100% could not find out about this.

“I was just kinda lost in my head,” Scott said. “On my way to the bathroom, I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going and ended up in the guest room.”

Liam’s face and body language didn’t change at all.

Scott winced. “I wasn’t being creepy, I was just…absent-minded.”

“Uh-huh,” Liam drawled. “So it’s not gonna matter if I mention it?”

With a spike in heart-rate, Scott could just imagine how that would go down, Liam would tell his dads who would mention it to Miss Argent who would notice a missing bullet and follow Scott home and then Derek would kill Scott and Miss Argent and-

“What do you want?” Scott asked, throat seizing up like an asthma attack he wasn’t sure he could get, anymore. “Look, I’ve got, like…” He rattled his brain. “Five dollars?”

The boy scoffed.

“ _Liam!_ ” Scott pleaded.

The boy tapped his chin. “I have to keep my grades up if I want to keep playing lacrosse,” he started.

Scott’s shoulders sagged in relief, and he started to nod. “You need tutoring?”

“…I _really_ don’t like math,” Liam continued, as if Scott hadn’t spoken.

Scott’s shoulders tensed.

Then fell again as the implication sunk in.

“You want me to do your math homework for you?” he asked.

Liam grinned, eyes bright and smile sharp. “That’s great, thanks Scott!”

With a weak nod, Scott shook Liam’s hand on it, and turned away. Well, at least middle school math shouldn’t take up too much time.

Hopefully it wouldn’t cut into his own math homework.

He trudged down the hallway, back to the living room.

“What’s the matter?” Stiles asked, before Scott even plopped back on the couch next to him. “You get lost?”

Across from them, Allison rolled her eyes at her brother.

Thankfully, neither of them noticed Scott’s wince, focused on their laptops as they were to get through their homework.

Not so thankfully, when Allison plugged in her earphones to focus on some geometry tutorial, Stiles moved his laptop so Scott could see his screen.

Except now, it wasn’t showing the Spark Notes page they were using for their English report, but-

“ _Twilight?!_ ” Scott hissed, keep his expression as neutral as possible while glancing at Allison. She was frowning at her computer.

He also looked up at and through the smaller doorway toward the dining room, and listened for Miss Argent putting together a snack in the kitchen. She was supposed to be watching them to make sure they _only_ did homework on their laptops, but she wasn’t really bothering to keep a close eye on ‘some teenagers who didn’t do anything worse than we did at their age’.

Stiles sighed, resuming the movie — which was silent, but had subtitles. “It’s a frame of reference, all right? If you ‘imprint’ or whatever, we gotta know about this stuff ahead of time-”

“Do I want to know what ‘imprinting’ even means?!” Scott demanded, doing his level best to keep his voice down. It was hard to do when his best friend was researching his condition by watching _Twilight_.

With a glance between Scott and the computer screen, Stiles shook his head.

“I’ll just…ask Derek,” Scott said, flopping back on the couch and picking up the book itself. “C’mon, dude, it doesn’t matter what species I am, we’ve still got a book report due.”

Stiles rolled his eyes. “There are bodies dropping and you’re changing species, and all you care about is homework?”

Shaping his mouth into the most winning smile he could muster, Scott nodded. “Do you really think the _Twilight_ movies are gonna help?”

“Do you have any better ideas?” Stiles challenged.

“Yeah: finish our book report!”

Stiles actually paused his movie just to gape at Scott.

Behind himself, where Stiles couldn’t see, Scott clenched his hands, one set of fingers twining into a throw pillow, the other digging claws into his palm. Scott was sure his heart was about to pound right out of his chest. With the room lit up with the last glares of the setting sun, Scott was sure Stiles should see him sweating.

“Just go ask _Derek_ , then!” Stiles hissed. “Where is he, even?!”

Scott shrugged, looking down at his toes wiggling into the plush rug. “Dunno,” he lied.

How was he supposed to explain to Stiles that his family knew about werewolves, _hunted_ werewolves? How was he supposed to explain to Derek that they weren’t murderers? How was he supposed to explain any of this to Mom?

Or to Allison?

Scott briefly entertained the notion that Stiles was a mind-reader when the other boy turned back to the computer and grumbled, “Go work with Allison if you care that much about the book report.”

Would it look too weird if he did? Would it be obvious that they’re dating?

Well, Liam wasn’t the only one who had to worry about his grades for lacrosse, now.

“I will,” Scott announced. When Stiles looked almost alarmed, Scott added, “I’m first line, now, I can’t let my grades drop!”

Stiles rolled his eyes, and made to go back to his movie — until Scott added, “Miss Argent’s coming.”

That, at least, got Stiles to close out of the movie altogether, just in time for his aunt to appear.

“Everything all right?” she asked, setting down a large bowl of chips and some dip on the coffee table between all of them, a smaller bowl of salsa beside it. Allison tugged out her earphones, as Miss Argent dropped into the armchair, smaller bowl of chips in one hand and her phone in the other. “I heard you two arguing.”

“We’re having a literary disagreement,” Stiles claimed, waving at the beaten -up copy of _1984_ Scott held. Miss Argent raised an eyebrow, and in sheer self-defense Scott shoveled some salsa onto a large chip and ate it in one bite.

Allison snorted, taking a nimble bite of her own chip. “Is that what you two call arguing about _Twilight_?”

Absolutely none of them were concerned when Scott choked on his chip. Stiles thumped his back with a grimace, and said, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“I saw the window for it when I was looking for my pencil,” Allison deadpanned.

“You guys get to read Twilight for English class?” Miss Argent teased.

Oh god oh god oh god how were they going to explain this she was gonna find out and tell the Sheriff and Mr. Argent and Derek was gonna kill them all and-

“I wish,” Stiles said, eying Scott in wariness, but shoving a water-bottle at him nonetheless. “It’s not really any more interesting then 1984, but it’s a hell of a lot more popular — _especially_ with girls. It would be so much more useful to learn in class!”

Scott realized Stiles’ mistake, but Stiles didn’t seem to realize it until Allison narrowed her eyes at him.

“What do you mean, ‘with girls’?” she asked.

Stiles froze. “Well…I mean — isn’t like, gender equity in literature supposed to be more of a thing?”

“What, and you think a terrible vampire romance is supposed to fix that?”

“Just because you think it’s terrible doesn’t mean everyone does!” Stiles defended.

Allison rolled her eyes, putting her earphones back on. Before she restarted whatever she was watching, she looked at Stiles and said, “Don’t bother — Lydia hates Twilight for glorifying abuse as romantic.”

With that, she pointedly slammed down on the space-bar of her laptop, restarting her tutorial.

Stiles scowled at his own laptop.

“Well,” Miss Argent offered. “At least if you watch it, you’ll understand what this girl is saying when she talks about why she hates it. That has to count for something, right?”

Stiles sighed far more dramatically than the situation warranted, and flopped back on the couch. Miss Argent laughed as she started flicking through her phone as well.

So much for multitasking. At least if they got their English homework done, that meant more time for everything else he had to do tonight — including Derek’s bullet-wound and Liam’s homework.

Miss Argent stayed with them until Stiles’ dads came home. While Stiles went to help Mr. Argent make dinner, the Sheriff took Miss Argent’s place, and Scott moved over to Allison’s couch, so they could work on their chem homework together.

And when the Sheriff went to the bathroom, Allison practically grabbed Scott and kissed him.

For a moment, he lost himself in the sensation, before pulling back in shock, darting his gaze around. “Allison!” he hissed.

She grinned, even as she pulled her chemistry textbook closer when Scott clutched their worksheets to his chest.

“Relax,” she said. “They’re not watching _that_ closely-”

Scott grimaced, but didn’t protest, since a moment later they heard the faint sound of the downstairs bathroom flushing. Allison smirked in victory, before schooling her expression into something more neutral right as the Sheriff walked back into the living room.

“Everything okay?” he asked, reclaiming his seat.

“No,” Scott groaned. Derek was bleeding to death in his bedroom, Allison wanted to keep their relationship a secret from everyone, and Stiles didn't know that his family's been hunting werwolves for centuries. _Nothing_ was okay.

But the Sheriff couldn’t know any of that, so instead he mumbled, “I’m gonna fail tenth grade.”

“I’m sure one bad night won’t do you in,” the Sheriff promised, and despite the hot mess his life had become, Scott still smiled gratefully at the affectionate shoulder rub he got with the reassurance.

Dinner was a pretty simple spaghetti and salad, and mostly filled with Liam’s chatter about the middle school lacrosse team. Scott could swear he felt the stolen wolfsbane bullet burning through his pocket, yet the one time he snuck his hand in there, it was cool to the touch, its only warmth coming from body heat.

He hoped.

Especially when Miss Argent turned to Scott and said, “So what’s this I hear about you nearly getting attacked by a wild animal the night you guys snuck out?”

Scott grimaced, and he wondered if anyone else noticed the slight glare Mr. Argent shot at his sister.

“Not much to say,” Scott said with a shrug. He would be amazed if he got home and there wasn’t a literal hole burned into his pocket from the bullet. What kind of answer was she looking for? What could he _say_ that wouldn’t be suspicious? How much would she discern if he just told them (most of) the truth? “I lost my inhaler and was looking for it, found the dead body instead and there was some kind of animal standing over it. It jumped at me but…” He took an awkward bite of spaghetti — how on the nose could he be? “I got out of there fast enough that it didn’t bite me.”

“Which is a shame,” Stiles piped up, and both his dad and his aunt turned to look at him with disbelieving eyebrows. “What? He’d get a cool scar!”

“Yeah, and rabies,” Allison said.

Scott grimaced. “Probably. It was big and I thought it was a wolf, but California doesn’t have any. Probably just a big dog with really bad rabies.”

He sighed, momentarily forgetting just who he was sitting at the table with — until they reminded him.

“Don’t worry,” Miss Argent said. She smirked at Mr. Argent and explained, “You guys are all so badly grounded that there’s no way it’ll be able to find you. And by the time your parents let you all out of adolescent prison, it’ll be dealt with.”

Scott swallowed, trying not to let his hands shake. Well, maybe he could get away with a little…

“I know,” Scott said. “It’s…probably gonna have to be put down.”

Stiles reached over and gave Scott a comforting shoulder rub, just like his pops had half an hour ago when Scott was whining about homework.

“It’s always sad,” Scott continued, poking his salad around his plate. “Dr. Deaton says it never goes away.”

Miss Argent frowned in confusion, before nodded. “Right — vet clinic? How is that?”

Did she know that Dr. Deaton was a ‘Druid’?

Then again, did Scott know if Derek was even telling the truth about that?

“Okay,” Scott said. “I don’t — I’m not around when he euthanizes pets, so…”

Miss Argent waved away his trailing speech with a wave of her fork. “We’ll probably just have to shoot the thing, anyway.”

“What?!” Scott yelped — mostly out of surprise than anything else. Even if she had been talking about actual dogs, how could she be so casual about shooting them?

Was she this casual about shooting werewolves?

“Honestly, it’s sometimes the best way to deal with a rabid dog,” the Sheriff said.

“It’s how my father dealt with it when we got a dog with rabies,” Mr. Argent continued. “It’s the most humane option, sometimes-”

“ _Shooting_ it?” Scott said, not even sure what he was talking about anymore. Dogs? Wolves? Werewolves?

Did it even matter anymore?

“The dog was suffering,” Mr. Argent said, putting his fork down so he could trap Scott in a compassionate gaze. “It was losing control over itself, it was violent, attacking anyone coming close to it, and there wasn't any way we could bring the pet we loved back. Deaton has to put down old pets who are sick and who will only suffer to their deaths, right? That's what we did. We didn't have any fancy drugs, and he was so rabid we couldn't get close to him anyway.”

Scott looked down at his plate. It didn’t really matter whether or not Mr. Argent was talking about dogs or ‘dogs’, Scott still wanted to cry.

“A bullet to the head was the quickest, most painless way we could let him go, without prolonging his suffering, and without hurting anyone else,” Mr. Argent finished.

Was that the best Scott could hope for? A painless bullet to the head?

“No,” Stiles hissed a few minutes later, when they were alone in the living room. Hunched over the coffee table as they were to pack up Scott’s backpack, Stiles murmured, “He doesn’t even know werewolves exist, Scott — he was just talking about a sick dog. It’s completely different and you know it.”

Scott certainly knew _something_ — something that Stiles _didn’t_.

Two somethings, in fact, since a moment later, when Scott was grabbing his jacket and phone from the charger in Stiles’ room, he bypassed Allison, who pressed a quick kiss to his cheek and darted away before Scott could respond — and just before Stiles appeared in the doorway. Why did _Scott_ have to be the one keeping all the secrets?

Then Miss Argent waited for all the kids coming down the stairs, arms crossed, and face set in resignation, and Scott remembered it was actually three somethings.

“All right,” she said. “Who went through my bags?”

Intellectually, Scott knew no one else could hear his heart pounding — yet it drowned out almost everything else.

He hadn’t thought of this.

“What are you talking about?” Allison asked, confused.

“There’s something missing from one of my bags,” Miss Argent said. Along with the bullet practically vibrating in his pocket, he could almost feel Liam glaring holes into the back of his head. Maybe not literally — not if Liam wanted his math homework done — but the sentiment was surely there.

Scott just prayed that math homework was enough to buy Liam’s silence.

“I was with Stiles and Allison all afternoon,” Scott said immediately. “It can’t have been them. Or, uh, us.”

“Uh-huh,” Miss Argent answered, narrowing her eyes at Liam.

“I was upstairs,” Liam reminded her, one hand gesturing toward the second floor, the other down the ground floor hallway toward the guest bedroom.

Scott was going to have to do _so much_ extra math homework for this.

“Maybe it fell out?” Scott offered. “Happens to me a lot. I once lost an inhaler and found it under the passenger seat of my mom’s car like a month later.” He couldn't say anything that might hint that he knew it was a bullet, but he really had lost an inhaler like that, once. “It rolled around a bit.”

Was it his imagination, or did her shoulders loosen at at that? He knew he couldn’t imply a bullet — she hadn’t said what was taken out of her bag — but he really had lost an inhaler like that once.“Maybe it fell out?” Scott offered. “Happens to me a lot. I once lost an inhaler and found it under the passenger seat of my mom’s car like a month later. It rolled around a bit.”

Was it his imagination, or did her shoulders loosen at at that? He knew he couldn’t imply a bullet 

— she hadn’t said _what_ was taken out of her bag — but he really had lost an inhaler like that once.

Miss Argent seemed to accept that explanation, and Scott dug his nails into his palm in relief.

Even more so when he overheard them while tying up his shoe-laces.

“ _He really was with them all day I was here,_ ” Miss Argent whispered, when she and her brother were down the hall from Scott. “ _You sure Scott wouldn’t take something?_ ”

“ _He’s the closest thing to a good influence Stiles has,_ ” Mr. Argent dead-panned. “ _Though he also tends to follow along with Stiles’ shenanigans, so he could be talked into lying to cover for them._ ”

That seemed to be the only explanation he found plausible. Halfway through the drive home, he asked Scott, “You _sure_ you were with Stiles all day? And Allison?”

“Yeah,” Scott mumbled, wishing Stiles weren’t still grounded and had been able to come along when Mr. Argent took Scott home. “And Liam wouldn’t steal anything,” he added, in case it accomplished something. “I bet whatever it is she lost, it’s in the back of her car right now. Stuff falls out of my pockets all the time.”

“Like when you lost your inhaler in the woods?” Mr. Argent drawled.

Scott sunk low in his seat. “We got it back,” he mumbled.

Mr. Argent chuckled, as he pulled up to Scott’s house.

It was a very calm night. The neighborhood was quiet, Mr. Argent was quiet as he watched Scott walk into his house, and the car was quiet as he drove away.

Scott, however, was not quiet when he walked into the kitchen and flicked on the light to see Derek, standing by the kitchen sink, shirtless, with shoelaces wrapped around his arm just above the bullet-wound, and his other arm poised over it with a steak knife.

His mom _cooked_ with that knife.

“What are you doing?!” Scott yelled.

Derek was almost as white as the tiles when he looked at Scott. The dim kitchen light darkened the hollows under his reddened eyes, and half his arm was covered in blackened veins.

“Better to lose my arm than my life,” Derek gasped out.

“You don’t have to lose either!” Scott cried out, glad that his mom wasn’t due home for a few more hours. He reached into his pocket to pull out the bullet. “Here, I’ve got it!”

For a moment, Derek just stared at the bullet shining in the golden light, eyes flickering between the Argent logo stamped on it, and Scott’s face.

Scott let out all the breath in his lungs when the knife clattered into the sink, and dropped his backpack into a dining chair in his haste to find the stove lighter.

“All right,” Derek said, dropping into the dining chair by Scott’s backpack, and laying his arm over the table as if people didn’t _eat_ off of it. “The first step is to break open the bullet to get the wolfsbane out, and then…”

The poisonous smoke made Scott’s nose itch, but at least he wouldn’t have to be cleaning up a ton of blood or trying to dispose of deadened limbs tonight.

Now he just had to finish up Liam’s math homework, and his own.

Everything else could wait until tomorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shameless self-plug time. If ya'll love these kids, even when they're not in a ship, I started a small time-travel fix-it fic [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15497826) for the [2018 Teen Wolf Gen Fest](https://teenwolflegacy.tumblr.com/genweek).

**Author's Note:**

> Compliments or concrit, I'd love to hear what you think. I want this fic to be as good for you to read as it is for me to write. :)
> 
> Come check out my [Stalliam](http://nyxelestia.tumblr.com/tagged/stalliam) tag on Tumblr to learn about this fic's inspirations, see a preview, or just say hi! ♥
> 
> If you like this fic, [please reblog it](http://nyxelestia.tumblr.com/post/148873268305/we-put-your-curse-in-reverse-chapter-1)!


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